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Résumé 2.0 – Down & Dirty On What to Include

July 8, 2009 by sparktalk 

By Debra Wheatman

  • What social networking information should be contained on your résumé?
  • Do you reference your LinkedIn address?
  • What about Twitter and Facebook?

    Do you have a major presence on one or all of these? How about the myriad other, albeit smaller players in the space? For what it’s worth, here’s my two cents on what should be referenced on your 2.0 résumé:

    #1 – Referencing your LinkedIn address at the top of your résumé is a good idea. For those inclined, they will connect to you and also obtain additional information regarding your background while learning about your extended connections. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and LinkedIn is a great way to leverage your professional connections. It also demonstrates your ability to engage with others, particularly from a business perspective if you post information and participate in discussions on the site.

    #2 – Twitter…well that’s a bit different. You can certainly reference your Twitter address; due to the flurry of information that flows therein, and the 140 character limit you should not just post a Twitter address. I recommend referencing something specific on the résumé with respect to this. Consider adding not only your Twitter name but also some information regarding the types of things you post about. You can include this under an Additional Experience header at the bottom of the page. If you write a blog or several blogs for different sites, consider listing that as well, with some detailed 411 about your posts. You might even create a link in the event someone wants to read something you have written.

    #3 – Here’s where Facebook fits in. If you are using Facebook to reconnect with old friends, share pictures of your family, including the one with little Suzie baking a cake with Grandma Rose, leave it off. A résumé is not the place for this type of personal interaction. I have found that Facebook is more social than professional, and would therefore stick to things on the résumé that are indicative of how you tie social media to your professional life.

    There are many other social networking sites out there. Since you cannot reference all of them, choose those where you are most active; provide some data on the résumé to let the reader know that you have an understanding of these tools and use them to share information with a larger community.

    A résumé does not just have to present a reverse chronological listing of your job history. It should serve as an engaging tool to allow a potential hiring manager the opportunity to learn about what makes you unique as a candidate.

    The bottom line is this: If you are using social networking sites to promote your professional life, then by all means include information on the résumé. If you are using the sites to engage with friends and loved ones, the résumé is not the place to do that.

    Deb Wheatman is an authorized DISC Administrator and Chief Career Officer, ResumesDoneWrite.Blogspot.com. Connect to her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.

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    Comments

    • I thought I knew all about this topic. Yet, your Resume 2.0 blogpost gave me valuable insight. -- eResumes4Vips
    • Michael
      As linkedIn reads lsomewhat ike a resume but significantly allows for recommendations and gives proof of your networking ability, this would be the one to include on a resume in my opinion.
    • I have found that Referencing your Virtual Business Card link at the top of your resume works really well also.

      http://www.spartx.com/sgonzalez
    • Great article! I was fired from my last job for not making quota the last 6 months, even though I was over quota the last 4 years.

      And for the last 4 months, I got interviews, but no hire. And it was getting to the point where I spent half the interview explaining why I couldn't reach sales goals and why I was fired.

      I gave up and decided to outsource my job references. I just by-passed the whole g*damn ordeal. I got hired 3 weeks later.
    • AlejandroGRodriguez
      Hi Deb:

      Everything you tell us is right, but we have not to forget, everything we post out there (e.g. facebook) may be found, specially by job recruiters. Not to include a facebook link in the resume is a good idea, not to post inconvenient data (photos, ideas) is a better one.
    • Great article; short but usefull. Be carefull with personal branding.
    • pete_flynn
      Have you seen http://twitsume.com? You can create a free online resume that links into your Twitter account and share it with your friends, followers and people searching for you on the web.
      Export in an easy to use PDF format or mail to people directly from the system.

      This may be a good way to use Twitter on or even as your resume?
    • robynfeldberg
      Nice, Deb, but I would add one word of caution... If your LinkedIn connections include colleagues with similar credentials and experience and you have not done an adequate job of communicating your unique value proposition, beware that a prospective employer may contact one of them for the job you wanted.
    • Sorry to be negative, but I don't think these suggestions help to the required level of where the modern job search is. When surveys show the 70% of recruiters now use Social Media to check job applicants after sift but before the telephone interview, to think that they may tap in your LinkedIn or Twitter address versus a straight, quick, get everything GoogleCV search and see what comes up is naive. Each piece of information in a CV/resume takes up space, and therefore has to be considered. Adding your Twitter profile when your name may be RubberDuck69 is as daft and terminal to your job search as having an adult orientated eMail address: and as a recruiter, I see one of those weekly! Plus, what comes through the stream of twet's: do I really want to know what you thought of the football score and the under performing linebacker, or would your politics put me off? LinkedIn included at maximum, but self-Googling and learning what the recruiter/employer will find, and then managing that would be better. Good Luck! Rgds, Ian R McAllister
    • Thank you for this insight. I do have Linkedin on my resume, because I do have recommendations, which I started asking for a year ago, when the economy started flattening out. My position was eliminated in August, and I'm so glad I have those recommendations, because they truly speak to who I am and what I can bring to an organization.

      I only use Twitter to promote non-profit organizations I belong to, and events for them. I do not use twitter for anything else. I'm not into discussing anything else except positive items for others and quotes to better us all.
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