Do I Really Have to Pay Attention to My LinkedIn Profile? Isn’t My CV Enough?

This is a question I often get asked by clients. There is a common misconception amongst job seekers that their primary focus should be on their CV. It highlights a misunderstanding about what the role of a CV is and what the role of a LinkedIn profile is. And it poses a very real risk for job seekers.

Your CV and your LinkedIn profile are tools to do particular jobs. Both of them help you with your job hunting, and they both give you an opportunity to present who you are. But there are also some significant differences. Here are two of them

Your LinkedIn profile is a comprehensive snapshot of your professional self

It will include lots of details about your career and skills. It will give an overview of what kind of work you do, and it should also include recommendations from others who have worked with you. It will be written in a generic kind of way to appeal to a wide audience.

Your CV on the other hand, will also include an overview of who you are along with details about your career and skills. But it should be written with a specific purpose in mind, and that purpose is to support an application for a particular job. It should be customised in a lot of places to meet particular job specifications. It should not be a generic document used for every application.

Your LinkedIn profile and your CV are written for different audiences

The audience for a LinkedIn profile will be very broad and could include colleagues, friends, recruiters, employers, managers, professional connections etc.

The audience for a CV will be specific recruiters and potential employers.

These two differences give you some clues as to why each is important. Your CV is your opportunity to highlight things that are relevant to a particular job you are applying for. It is a document that is targeted for a very specific niche to do a very particular job. And that job is to get you an interview.

Whereas your LinkedIn profile will serve a wide range of purposes. Yes, it will most likely get looked at by the same recruiter who is handling your job application. But it can also make you visible to a wide range of recruiters, and a lot of other people who might know about a job that you would be well suited for.

One of the big challenges for job seekers is:

How to be seen by people who might employ them?

If you only focus on your CV, and not develop your LinkedIn profile at the same time, you might be missing a great opportunity to find an exciting new job.

LinkedIn Refresher

When was the last time you did some work on your LinkedIn Profile? Does it need some attention?

Book in now for a LinkedIn Refresher. I will take you through all you need to know including:

• What needs to be in your profile
• How to write each section
• How to use your profile to get the most out of it
• How to integrate this in with your job search strategy