There has been much talk in online circles this week about the potential for the death of the CV as social networks begin to focus upon the roles they can provide in the employment market.
“Bullhorn says 43% of firms are transforming digitally and CVs play less of a role.” – This Is Money
It is unlikely that there are many people in the UK more pro the benefits of social networking to business than yours truly. I have studied the benefits of socialising business applications for over 3 years now, working across a number of social networking business opportunities. Throughout this I have explored and indeed I am executing a number of business / purpose driven social networks as we speak. Now I am not high profile and out there… I don’t need that ego burst but I do work with some of the finest marketers in the land on the topic and I hope that they respect my thoughts, opinion and advice in the arena.
I must admit I am growing weary. The notion that social networking is a panacea, a replace all methodology that is going to change the very fundamentals of the way we work and exist. It isn’t. Social Networking is a toolkit. It is a toolkit that makes what we have been doing for years that little bit easier. For some at least the social network is an extension of the marketers toolkit. It is a toolkit that is also accessible to non-marketers. Hence marketers and non-marketers are seeking ways to utilise social media to advantage their professional lives. Social Media enables free and open connectivity, it enables communication and sharing of ideas, it allows people to connect with one another on the basis of relevance. Social media is a combination of search, self-publishing and the creation of defined relationship between two entities. i.e. I am a friend of yours, you are a friend of mine.
Now I am no professional in HR. I do not have years of experience in handling the sensitive issues of employee management. I have never been asked to source 200 people in a matter of weeks for a new project starting in some far away land. Performance Management? Give them a kick up the backside. Like a tea party between Vince Cable and the union leaders, you get the picture.
We have established a social network. We utilise all of the usual suspects – LinkedIN, twitter, facebook, tumblr and many more. These are our outreach programmes. A place to build awareness, create some value and get involved in a little chit chat with new and old acquaintances alike. This is all part of our social network but by no means is that the whole of our social network.
“It’s unrealistic to think that a 2D static side of A4 can paint a detailed enough picture of a candidate to effectively screen them.” – HInterview
Yes, we have the news site, what you are reading now. We also give you the facility to post and apply for jobs and we have also built you a nice shiny new social network that will allow people within this employment, jobs, talent community to connect with one another on a more local, topic centered basis than on the huge mainstream networks.
Now in our social network, our objective is for employers, co-workers, training organisations and all the other participants in the Work / Life cycle to connect with one another on the basis of shared interests. Things may work out differently. It is down to you in the community and what you want from it. But we hope that it is going to help employers enact strategies to find employees and similarly help employees gravitate around employers who interest them. Savvy individuals will create blogs and this will help them to stand out from the crowd. In turn, this will help employers to find out much more about individuals beyond these savvy individuals beyond the merits exhibited on their CV’s. Data on the individuals profile will also perform the function of the CV to a certain extent, providing key information that is useful to the employer.
“With more than 55 million companies listed on the site and 14 million open jobs, it’s no surprise to find out that 87% of recruiters regularly use LinkedIn.” – Kinsta
But let’s get real folks. Monster just did a survey. People spend 14 million hours per week searching for new jobs at work alone. 14 million hours every week! People don’t spend 14 million hours a week on the site. Some people spend plenty of time here but nothing like that kind of volume of time. For now at least.
The reality of the CV is its portability, the fact that we are so used to working with it and to its standards. The other reality is that not everyone does social networking. There is a tendency for social networking types to assume that because they do it then so does everyone else. They don’t.
You see the CV is portable, it can reach across thousands of job boards, be stored in thousands of well established databases and is used by people from vicars to construction workers, nurses to doctors, mechanics to scientists. No social network has yet penetrated this deep or this far.
I see social networking as a means to identify, create, manage and retain relationships in the employment market. It enables co-workers to gravitate around one another and allows recommendation across all the various relevant relationships within the social network. CV’s are in my view at least supplemental to the act of social networking as social networking is supplemental to the CV.
For now at least the death of the CV seems little more than a talking point.
Or am I wrong?
