The Age of the Aggregated Resume

That's not a valid work email account. Please enter your work email (e.g. you@yourcompany.com)
Please enter your work email
(e.g. you@yourcompany.com)

connectedWhat is a social resume ? Is it the same as a profile? Does it replace anything or add to it? The reason for these questions are simple, these products are popping up everywhere. Essentially, services like Entelo, Gild, CareerCloud and more take publicly available data and create an aggregated list or profile based on that data. In most cases, the general crux of the social resume is created from LinkedIn data, but that trend may be changing. Some of these new products are aimed at the jobseeker and others are built for recruiters and sourcers as a talent database, with the entire Internet as the potential applicant pool.

So what are the benefits of the social resume to the jobseeker?

It’s a more comprehensive picture of accomplished work. While there are a lot of people who use LinkedIn or a traditional resume to showcase their work, social resumes give a more well-rounded picture of the breadth of a jobseeker’s career, highlighting work that is often difficult to capture on a resume.

It creates a simple way to share work easily. Even with a traditional resume, it can be difficult to translate in real-life your social footprint on the web. Putting a separate link for every social network creates cluttered resumes and more work for interviewers. Having an aggregated profile creates an at-a-glance one stop shop for recruiters and talent acquisition pros.

It implies social sophistication. Having an organized and comprehensive space to showcase work makes jobseekers seem organized, detailed and socially sophisticated. This can impress HR managers and hiring personnel but can potentially backfire if they aren’t familiar with (or don’t wish to become familiar with) the newer platforms.

It’s visual. This is especially useful for designers, developers and other creatives. Having a way to show off the work that’s tough to write down is useful for jobseekers and those looking to hire. Many entry level designers don’t have enough work to create an online portfolio (or the need to, if they aren’t an entrepreneur), social resumes and aggregators solve that problem.

What are the benefits for the recruiter or hiring manager?

A broader area to search. For many recruiters, socially aggregated profiles open up a whole new set of “social nodes” which can connect them to a brand new set of potential candidates, specifically in the fields listed above.

They can easily do QA. Every recruiter knows that often, the candidate who looks fantastic on paper is a dud in the role. While aggregated resumes don’t solve that problem completely, they do give a bigger picture idea of what a candidate is capable of. It’s called “social proof” and it works in the recruiter’s favor.

It’s simpler. While it can be frustrating to have  multiple sites to search, many of the aggregators do similar things and being able to peruse one website cuts down on time spent vetting candidates and viewing multiple sources for each candidate.

In short, social aggregators are useful from a lot of different perspectives, building on the foundation that LinkedIn started. In addition, many of these sourcing engines are creating ever more sophisticated algorithms so that recruiters can use them more easily and jobseekers don’t have to create yet another login to a social network. What would social resumes and social aggregators have to include to be useful in your world?

By Maren Hogan