The curious case of the CV and the missing social media sites.

Not long ago I spoke to some education course directors about the skills we would like to see from students as they enter the communications industry.  One of the areas that was discussed was the inclusion of blogging and other social media presences on their CVs.  These would really help give a rounded view of a candidate and their writing skills/knowledge of social media/ability to converse.  The response back was that students were too shy.

Recently I also had a unusual experience with CVs and social media.  I was asked to sit on an interview panel for a social media position.  The CVs were all very articulate and impressive.  Some were standard layout, some html and some were designed by a graphics designer and very pleasant to read – similar to a magazine format.  However the one thing that they all lacked was a link or url for their social media sites.  I managed to find most of them through search so they all had reasonably robust presences.  I expected that the candidates would rationalise that these sites were personal but interestingly all put it down to an oversight.  One candidate pointed out that she has a fake and real twitter account and so had risked interviewers getting a very different perception of her.  All reported that they include their social presences on their email signatures but it appears that the strict adherence to the CV format produces some curious holes in peoples presentation of themselves.

I have seen some really nice CVs that incorporate some slick Web 2.0 design and I think I would be impressed to get one of these infographic Resumes/CVs.

If nothing else please make sure you include links to your social media sites – it will save the interviewer a bunch of time and means they will at least find the real you.

Update 21 August.  Met Jordan McDonnell at a Digital Marketing Institute course last week where he shared the trajectory exposure experience he had with an unorthodox CV/resume he loaded on to SlideShare.  Really worth a look for inspiration and a fantastic story behind it.