Talent network evangelists unite!

By Kevin W. Grossman

With all the talk of the online job boards dying and the resume dying, you’d think they were dying.

They’re not. In fact, according to an article on ERE.net:

For being so out of fashion, so yesterday, job boards manage to come out on top or top-adjacent on nearly every source of hire study. In a Bersin & Associates survey this fall job boards tied for first with internal transfers as the leading source of all hires. CareerXroads says job boards produced 24.9 percent of all external hires in 2010, second only to employee referrals (27.5 percent).

Resumes are uploaded to job boards continuously every day. So, the reality is that the models are evolving – meaning, resumes are becoming online profiles and job boards are becoming talent networks.

Well, the former more than the latter (fact is, talent networks are evolving into interactive job boards and then some). Remember when you used to painstakingly format your resume, or pay someone to do so, in one of multiple standard formats, and then mail it to employers you wanted to work for?

Some of you older kids do, like me. And even when we evolved and moved to electronic formats in our resumes, they were in multiple formats that didn’t include what we now include when it comes to our growing online footprint.

Think about these stats:

• Facebook is nearing one billion users globally – and growing.
• LinkedIn is over 135 million professionals around the world – and growing.

LinkedIn is a no-brainer. It’s become the new standard by which the online resume, or better known as the online profile, is managed by the above millions and millions of professionals around the world. And it’s become the first choice of recruiters and hiring managers worldwide to source and recruit candidates.

Facebook is right about the corner. Still primarily known for a media-rich playground where friends and family play, it’s becoming fast a new playground for recruiters and hiring managers seeking candidates in Facebook users who are updating their profiles to include their careers, skills and experience.

Consider this: Facebook, the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), DirectEmployers Association (DE), and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) created the Social Jobs Partnership. The partnership’s goal will be to facilitate employment for America’s jobless through the use of social networks, including job postings delivered through Facebook at no charge. That is very cool.

I’ve written about this before, but for those of you already have an online career profile you manage, as well as you employers that source and recruit online and value the online profile over the resume, please evangelize to accelerate the rest of the world, because this is where it’s going.

In fact, the career management industry can help too by sharing some of the same best practices applied to the resume that can and should be applied to the online profile:

• A consistent standard layout for portability
• A concise professional summary
• Accomplishment highlights that are relevant to the bottom line
• A clear timeline of professional activities that account for any gaps
• Search-optimized profile with the keywords you want to be found for
• Request multiple online recommendations as well as giving them
• Update regularly whether you’re looking for a job or not

Let’s get everyone to know the power of the online profile! Talent network evangelists unite!