Sunday 18 October 2009

Do your social media contacts go into your cv ? (1)

During these days I spent some time to update my curriculum vitae (cv, resume) with the new competencies that I've gained since I started to work.
Two questions arose:
  • Shall we add our social meeting contact to our cv ?
  • Shall we add our blog address (or windows web space or whatever you use to "post your thoughts on internet") to the cv ?
Regarding the first question, the answer is not immediate and easy.
You can also add your Skype contact, in somehow you can consider it like an additional telephone. I've already seen managers who exchange their Skipe contact, maybe in Italy we are not accustomed to use it in our business meeting, but I bet in other countries it is widely spread for your daily job conversation. But would you write your messenger contact on your cv ?
How can it come in handy for the recruiters ?
I don't think that it's helpful to add your msn contact to your cv for several reasons:
1) Maybe you are not going to add your recruiter contact to your list because you do not know who is behind that nickname, a similar explanation is valid for Skype as well.
2) Chatting does not reveal enough about you and might be misleading. On the contrary, Skype works well because it's like having a job interview at telephone.

Let's shift our focus on the second question.
Nowadays a lot of us get on line in a several different ways. Just to name few social-media: Facebook, Windows web space, blog, Twitter and so on.
Would you allow a recruiter (who still does not know anything about you) to access to your FB wall, or blog ? Would you write your blog address on your cv ?

Well, here the answer is more complicated and crunchy. Proceeding by examples. if you have your "geek coffee on line" and you hunt a job in the IT sector it might interesting to reveal it. Indeed it shows that you're really concerned about technology, you're fond of it :) and moreover you show how you are able to master some kind of technology.

Now, changing the example. Suppose you have your blog where you tell your personal life, your daily experiences, in other words a place where you free up your thoughts. If you give these information to your recruiter, you might reveal more than you would do during an interview.
From the recruiters' point of view, I suppose your blog or FB is an attempting source of information. Indeed the human resource manager is highly interested in your soft skills (organizational. communication capabilities ...) and sometimes they are more important than your technical background or previous work experience(s).
By adding your "on line personal corner" (for the sake of simplicity, I call FB, blog, etc in this way) you expose yourself to the human resource manager and it could even be an advantage.
You're just saying "that's me" , here my true point of views, you can also enforce your candidature with your blogs and show that you're the right person for that vacation.

How would you answer the opening questions ?

3 comments:

Zax (Andrea) said...

hi,
I put in my CV my skype address, and my Linkedyn profile. Nothing about facebook or MSN, or something else ... is a bad idea
of course IMHO

Andrea

Raiha said...

Interesting post! I agree, Skype and LinkedIn are a given. Msn seems a bit too "Teenish" and unprofessional. Twitter, if you tweet relevant things and Facebook again if you post relevant items to your segment. Personality never hurt anyone and besides, nowadays a quick Google search can reveal a lot about anyone ;-)

Puntino said...

Thank you both of you :)
I still do not know if I'm going to put my blog address on my cv, but I can add my Skype contact, definitely.
Anyway Raiha is tremendously right, just googling you can get the info you 're looking for...
@ Raiha by the way have you ever added your blog address on your cv ?

 

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