"New Media Proves I'm Brilliant"

This is the fourth in a series of 5 articles. Over the last few weeks we’ve looked at the tools available to candidates and whether they add any value to the recruitment process. This week, we move towards a conclusion.

What can you do as an employer?

In some ways, the introduction of new technology should not change anything about your recruitment process. The CV has always been a poor predictor of character. Any jobseeker with access to the internet can now get useful, cheap advice on how to build a traditional CV. At a click you can find all the resources you need to create a great CV, from as little as £5.

As one of the online CV writing services boldly states:

"Why do some people always get the job they want? Because their CV wins them an interview!"

And that is the key point. A CV is a tool used to “win an interview”. The danger is that as recruiters, we could be blinded by science. It’s not the website, or the articles, or the blog, or the image on the video clip that you’re employing, it’s the person.

"Great, they’ve written 57 articles for various learned journals, filmed themselves delivering a lecture on change management and have networked links to three CEO’s, but can they project manage the implementation of a new and challenging HR system in the Swindon HQ?"

A recruitment process should be simple, logical and designed to assess the skills and behaviours required of a particular role. There is currently a temptation to make use of new technology ‘because it’s there’ – in other words, it is possible to let additional forms of presenting information or selling ability to drive your recruitment agenda. The starting point should be the role and its requirements and then the process you are going to employ.

Next week; 5 practical points for employers to consider, 'Confused Recruiters and Technology'.


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Professional Networking - Mutual backslapping?

This is the third in a series of 5 articles. Last week we looked at the range of on-line tools available to candidates. This week, we focus on Professional Networking sites.

In addition to more general sites like Facebook, business networking sites such as LinkedIn, Plaxo, StumbleUpon and ZoomInfo are now being used in record numbers.

Linkedin is the site of choice for business professionals, with 23 million registered users worldwide and over 1 million here in the UK. Although not extensively used by employers in the UK as a source of candidate information, their use within the recruitment process is growing.

From a candidate perspective, the network offers two key benefits:

• It allows potential employers to reference you (informally) in terms of the quality of your contacts and the information on your pages. This referencing may only take the form of getting a better picture or perception of you as an individual, but it could sway the decision to interview one way or the other

• It allows candidates to legitimately 'be on the market'. With sites such as LinkedIn becoming the norm, you can now be found by alternative employers or head-hunters with relative ease. This should obviously increase the number of opportunities open to you, without the fallout of your boss finding your (traditional) CV on the market

But what does the use of professional networking really tell us? Does a large and impressive looking network prove anything other than someone uses the site exhaustively? If anyone suggested they had 1000's of Facebook friends, we wouldn’t consider that to be real proof of their popularity. A network of professional friends and ex-colleagues means that it is relatively easy to be recommended by a whole range of impressive sounding individuals, but does it prove that someone is really any good?

For the potential employer, access to all of this information may overcomplicate the recruitment process. When used properly by potential employees, networking sites expand upon skills and experience, give a greater insight into the way a candidate works and an idea of who they are associated with. When used improperly (or perhaps in a misguided way) they oversell experience and go on to prove that people will always be able to get their mates to 'recommend' them.


Next week we look what you can do as an employer to cut a sensible swathe through all of this technical noise or 'New Media Proves I'm Brilliant'.


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Profiles and perception

With the traditional CV under threat, does technology make it more difficult for employers to get a true picture of their potential employees?

This is the second in a series of 5 articles. Last week we looked at the increasing use of technology to sell candidate experience verses the traditional CV. This week, can employers see the wood for the trees?

Profiles and perception

There are now a range of tools available which are competing with or complementing the traditional CV. Today’s younger candidates have grown up with social networking, YouTube, instant messaging and blogs. This is particularly true for the generation born after 1989, often classed as ‘the Internet Generation’ or ‘Generation Y’:

According to a US survey in 2007, 97% of Generation Y own a computer, 76% use instant messaging, 28% own a blog and 44% read a blog, 76% of college students have a Facebook account, and this take up is still increasing.

It is possible to increase your profile and therefore perceived employability by utilising all of the tools at your disposal. This is obviously what candidates want, but does make it more difficult for an employer to focus on real ability and skill set as opposed to perceived ability and on-line hype.

It’s not just the American youth who are taking advantage of cyberspace for recruitment purposes. Virtual interaction is taking place amongst experienced professionals here in the UK too, even at the highest levels:

Sanderson’s recent survey of professional candidates on their database showed that 46% of respondents had a profile on Facebook and 42% on LinkedIn. 91% expected employers to conduct a Google search or check details on networking sites before interview.

Added value or information overload?

With the increased use of on-line CV’s and “Personal Professional Websites” candidates can highlight experience and demonstrate his or her skills through references, pieces of work, opinions and case studies. Professional blogs can highlight their knowledge and interest in their field, showing them as an interested expert in what they do.

But the same tips (and tricks) that were always available to candidates writing standard CV’s are now available “writ large” for on-line profiles. There were always CV builders, CV writing services and professional CV checkers, plus an array of different templates to choose from.

Over 70% of respondents to a recent Sanderson survey said that they had used CV writing assistance/tips available from the internet (Sanderson surveyed 1397 professional candidates on their database in May 2008)

Now there are a whole host of additional points for employers to consider:

• Did the candidate build the site themselves?
• Does it matter if they didn’t?
• Are they better than a candidate without a website?
• Do I have the time to check all of this information- the blogs, the articles the work samples?
• Is it relevant?
• Is it all the candidates own work?
• Am I being blinded by the impressive presentation and missing the content?

Essentially the internet means that you can find any information you want, get whatever help you need, create what you want and link it to anything that adds to your suitability. This doesn’t mean that the information available to potential employers is necessarily untrue, just that there’s so much of it.


Next week 'Professional Networking – Mutual Backslapping?'


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More information, more interactive, more lies?

This is the first in a series of 5 articles. Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at the tools available to candidates, whether they add any value and what employers should do to make sense out of it all.

With the traditional CV under threat, does technology make it more difficult for employers to get a true picture of their potential employees?

Recruitment used to be so simple didn’t it? Read the pile of CV’s on your desk and pick the strongest candidates to interview. The CV told you what you needed to know- education, experience and employment history. Its look and feel gave you additional insight into the candidate based on layout, spelling and punctuation. There was always the danger of embellishment or fabrication, but essentially the CV felt like an egalitarian and fair way of comparing candidates via a single document.

As we enter an age where commentators are predicting the “death of the CV” or at least a diminished role for the traditional CV within the recruitment process, candidates are increasingly using technology to sell themselves.

We’ve all had the sales pitch. These tools will make recruitment easier, offer more information, and provide links to examples of articles, blogs, videos and references.

Yet, with technology comes the opportunity to “enhance” ability, oversell experience or just downright lie. It is often more difficult to spot embellishment or “over exuberance” than deliberate falsehoods, with candidates wringing every ounce out of their experience. As one blogger advised recently when answering a query about CV style; “truth, yes, modesty, NO” - but where does confidence end and overconfidence begin on a factual document like the CV?



Next week 'Profiles and Perception'; does an on-line presence add value to the recruitment process or simply 'big-up' less able candidates?

The impact of modernisation on employees and employers...

This is the final article in a series of 5. In the last few weeks we’ve looked at photographs on CV’s, personal professional websites, on-line CV’s and professional networking. This week, a conclusion of sorts.

What does all this mean for potential employees and potential employers?

It is likely that the traditional CV driven recruitment process that we are most used to in the UK is starting to develop for the first time.

Where photographs and videos have failed to make an impact and appeared ever so “look at me” to the British; the slightly removed and professionally acceptable on-line approach has far more chance of success. It sits more comfortably with our more reserved psyche and allows candidates to state their credentials without having to overtly sell themselves.

OK, this is obviously a generalization, and there are plenty of Brits who can sell themselves effectively, but the use of websites, on-line CV’s and social networking is increasing. They are unlikely to replace the traditional CV for some time, but will be used to form a more complete picture of potential candidates- especially as the on-line Generation Y become the hiring managers.

Perhaps we feel more comfortable when hiding behind technology, perhaps the environment appears more appropriate and professional. Either way, if your upper lip is too stiff, technology won’t solve the problem for you. If it works, your problems have only just begun, because CV’s only have one real purpose- to get you an interview.

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