Ask HN: Can I use Linkedin profile instead of resume for my job applications?
I believe most things employers want to see is already on my Linkedin profile. Except stuff like relevant courses or GPA (I am a student obviously). Can I do this?
You can argue about this, but the original poster asked a question, and this is the Real Response to that question. If a prospective employer asks for a resume, send them a resume.
HR isn't as progressive as you might think.
If you know that a forward "function" exists, you just use it, and it'll forward whatever you have (link or document).
If you don't know that, you'll have to resend the email yourself, and in this case, copy/pasting a link is way easier than re-attaching the attached CV.
What am I missing here?
That people cling to tradition for irrational reasons. Also, one valid reason is that they might want to print your resume. It's a lot easier to print a PDF than a web page.
In the end, my view is that smaller companies or startups are probably more receptive to a Linked In profile than larger, more established companies.
Perhaps I am collecting all resumes received by email into one mailbox, and I periodically do a batch print of everything there, then take the printouts home to review in comfort on the couch.
Perhaps I'm doing some classification of resumes based on keywords in the body and attachments, and the software that does that does not follow links.
But perhaps you don't want to work in an organization where parts of the organization are allowed to suck? Where hiring is considered important enough for resumes to go straight to your manager? There's a not a lot of these places, but they're often the ones with the top talent (and they're likely to find your resume than you have to chase them).
This could be the kiss of death for a junior job seeker, but for those people who are more senior, experienced and can be choosers as opposed to beggars, it might be an OK screening method.
Yes, if you're networking your way to a job (the best way to do it), you might be able to do this. I've done it several times successfully, but it is NOT the norm for outside applicants. Through normal, everyday, channels HR gets first crack at it.
If you're dealing with a small company, you could try it - but clicking a link and opening up Linkedin (vs. reading an attachment) is one more mental step the hiring folks have to take to get from your email to your resume, which could matter in a not-hot economy.
If you're dealing with a large company, its system probably needs a resume it can store in its management system and scan for keywords/indexing - in which case the HR folks would have to copy-paste your Linkedin profile in and fix it up, which they probably won't do. Plus, you're ignoring one of the first things they've asked you to do, which isn't a great start.
I get that this is fun to bicker about, but have you considered also that LinkedIn might not be the best way for jobseekers to present themselves? Why would you want to shoehorn yourself into LinkedIn's format?
Businesses are set up to do things a certain way. Often exceptions are fine, equally often, they are not. Since you don't have visibility into exactly why they want it emailed, just follow instructions.
There are many positive ways you can distinguish yourself as a unique snowflake; this is not one of them.
http://techworklove.com/2011/01/resume-building-websites-are...
As a hiring manager, I need a piece of paper in my hand that I can look at, print and carry with me to your interview. Have you tried to print a LinkedIn profile yet?
So I'm afraid you'll have to keep generating a nice-looking PDF. The content may be 99% identical to what's on your LinkedIn page, that's fine. Understand that your job is to make my life as easy as possible, so I can focus on figuring out who you are.
PS: also, please never send Word documents, I hate opening Word documents, use PDF instead
I've found in practice, that a lot of large companies (and headhunters) that use HR software seem to have trouble with PDFs. In this day and age, it's mind boggling that their software would have trouble full-text indexing a PDF. Maybe they're just too cheap to pay for software upgrades.
PDFs are almost never an issue if you're emailing it directly to the hiring manager, but a PDF could be bad if you're emailing a catch-all mailbox like jobs@ or hr@.
Fortunately, the interviewer saw the humour and we had a good chuckle about it.
Such generalizations are poor advice. Send what the employer asks for. Some will ask for Word, and are likely to be as annoyed by a PDF as you are to be annoyed by Word.
In a tight job market employers are looking for reasons to disqualify candidates, and using a linkedin profile rather than an actual resume is as good as an excuse as there is.
In addition, in the US providing a headshot of yourself with your resume will automatically disqualify you for consideration in many large organizations due to concerns over equal employment opportunity requirements (even though attaching a headshot to a CV is standard in other countries).
My resume lists my relevant qualifications, experience, and then educational background, and if a recruiter decides after seeing this to do further research, I've included links to more information about me (LI, FB, and my personal site). The reasoning here is to decrease any friction on the employer's end. Make things easy for them when they are initially screening you by providing them with a 1-page resume, and make things easy for them when they want to do more research by providing the information to them.
Don't be lazy about it (recruiters can smell laziness from miles away), but LinkedIn does provide a resume printout pdf of your work experience, recommendations, and education. I would not recommend submitting this, but you can use LinkedIn as I do as sort of a 'Master Resume'. From there, I can pull the work experiences and recommendations that an employer would like to see the most.
Funny, but I can smell lazy recruiters a mile away too.
"I came across your resume today... blah blah blah ... send me your resume and we can get started."
WTF?
I've had contact with about 30 recruiters in 2010 - the vast majority were 1-off emails or 2 minute phone calls. 3 were non-lazy, in my view, and I got a short term contract from one of them. She was polite, courteous, seemed like she was actually doing some positive work for both parties - a pretty rare find.
Yes, this was a bit off-topic, but, really... they're not doing this for fun - they're getting paid. If they think you're truly lazy they probably won't deal with you. But you shouldn't have to jump through hoops and do their job for them either.
If it's a job I'm interested in, I want to send them a current resume at the very least, and probably also highlight the most relevant experience.
Who knows how old, what version or how mangled the resume they saw was...
(However, many mean "I did a search on LinkedIn, and yours was one of a couple thousand profiles I decided to spam based on one or two keyword hits and being with 100 miles of the job site")
OTOH, I have a notice to recruiters at the top of my resume page with specific instructions. I've had recruiters call me and make note that they'd read the information and had some questions about my availability. That happened twice in 2010 - I gave them extra attention and went out of my way to try to help them find a good fit for the position. Simple courtesy goes a long way.
In a larger organization, the chance of your application running into a "why is there a 'link-edin' address in this email? where's the resume? what am I supposed to print?" person somewhere along the process rises fast.
Optimally in-house recruiters would translate/explain the LinkedIn thing to people who wouldn't get it or wouldn't want to get it. Depends if you're comfortable taking that chance or even care for working at companies where someone hasn't heard of LinkedIn.
Obviously whether foregoing a paper resume is okay depends on the company.
If you're applying for a job then a CV is pretty much a requirement. You will come across as lazy/disinterested if you tell people everything they need is on linkedin.
Even the cover letter isn't a good example, since many of them are cut and paste jobs.
I can't tell you how many people I've interviewed over the phone whose resumes were acceptably well written but couldn't put a sentence together when you talked to them.
Your LinkedIn profile is not the best way to present yourself to the company. You want to customize your resume for each company to which you apply. Maybe when applying to one company, you emphasize the work you’ve done in Oracle, and to another it’s all about the Linux sysadmin, depending on what the company wants.
Creating a resume is hard work, and it's not something you do only once. It's not a matter of filling in the blanks. Please don't try to take the easy way out. (http://techworklove.com/2011/01/you-cant-take-the-easy-way-t...)
The Linked-in version (or anything it generates) can't do this effectively.
IMHO It's on-par with sending your resume in .docx -- finding a good candidate is hard, so I'll probably jump through the hoop, but you'll be mentally earmarked as "that guy who sent me the problematic resume."
Just do .txt / .pdf with the same info in both, and everyone will love you.
Edit: If you want to really stand out, provide an alias whose search results illustrate your domain knowledge and community participation. :)
One thing that is interesting is endorsements on your LinkedIn profile. Mine is fully public. I have 13 references on it.
What makes LinkedIn references special is that if I recommended someone, and the relationship subsequently soured, I can revoke my recommendation for that person.
I cannot say a receive lots of work requests, but the usual pattern for me is that HR people find me on LinkedIn somehow, contact directly and ask for a resume.
I recommend that you read "Land the tech job you love", which is full of resume writing advice.