Why you need to sync up your CV and LinkedIn (and Xing and the like)

Many CV’s one receives these days look pretty good, often they do point into the general direction of what the employer is expecting – of course sometimes agencies are also being supportive ensuring the CV looks right. However, once you try to get a consistent picture of the person applying, by checking out at least LinkedIn and Xing, it is surprising how far apart these pictures may look.

 So maybe you do have a great tailor-made CV for that cool hands-on role next door, which you really want to secure. Sounds good, so the agency is happy with you and submits your CV to the employer. They will look at it and find many nicely designed sentences, projects and experiences fitting very well with the role you are applying for. However, all-to-often, now your LinkedIn profile may very well say something entirely different – that you are only part-time consultant and bet on the money market the remainder of your time, that you are actually not interested in hands-on roles at all and that you are really looking for “some global management of something or the other”, it may say that you are actually not a consultant, but “global deployment coordinator supporting the assistant vice president of leftover affairs”. Or, when looking for a hands-on junior consultant with a good-looking CV, the LinkedIn only talks about him being a “Board Member of this and that”. So maybe your CV and your profile are not perfect – but that is fine, that may always be, seldom will you find a perfect fit. But they need to be consistent to show that you are what you say you are and the company will not lose much time just to discover that your CV wasn’t really that spot-on after all.

 Now the actual role is one thing, but keep an eye on the remainder of the profile as well – are you connected with business people from previous jobs? Do you have Endorsements from business/users (no, colleagues from your home country do not count here), do you have recommendations from managers from recent projects? Are you in the “right” groups? And no, sorry, posting cat pictures, quizzes or flaming will usually not help you to get that job.

 All these have been examples from the past few weeks and it is interesting how many candidates disqualify themselves by trying hard with the CV, but not having the LinkedIn to keep up with it.

 Now this talks about employees, but similar of course is valid for contractors. That SAP PP guy, whom CV looked pretty good, but his LinkedIn talked almost only about his SAP FI, CO and MM, was quickly disregarded, even the CV looked nice, but it just didn’t fit…..

Make sure, you paint the right picture, make sure, you paint it consistent and make sure it shows who you are – being honest and consistent has seldom stood in the way for a good job.