Will Social Media Replace Traditional Resumes?

No doubt social media is one of the rising tools HR managers turn to for multiple perspectives of their prospective employees/interns. I'm sure you've been told by your professors a thousand times over. Keep your Facebook profiles clean and hidden, because it is very likely your potential employers will see your drunk poses, smoking habits, and anything else you don't want your mother to see.

Apart from Facebook, who has been the big player for the past 5 years, LinkedIn and Twitter are quickly joining the picture. 


Many companies, especially those with a strong focus on social media marketing, ask potential employees for their social media profile urls. Some don't ask, but look it up anyways to get a better grasps the candidates as a person.


With social media on the rise as a supplemental factor for job seekers, will it eventually replaces the traditional resume completely?


LinkedIn


Not only is LinkedIn one of the most popular professional networking site, it's becoming a different hiring tool for employers. Why?


Instead of choosing and cramming a few job experiences and description on a letter-sized document, LinkedIn allows you to put up all your job experience in a glance. It indicates your current positions, past positions in short like a Facebook Status on the top of your profile.


Your profile shows links to your personal website, twitter accounts and more, so instead of waiting for an interview to show a full portfolio of your work, it's all laid out there for employers.


Not only that, it allows you to ask for, and display recommendations from employers, keep in touch with professionals you meet, and stay up to date.


Some key stats

• 50% of Fortune 100 companies hire through LinkedIn
• 1 professional joins LinkedIn every second
• 1 million professionals joining LinkedIn every 12 days
• 1 billion people searched on LinkedIn last year

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/06/14/241559/Will-LinkedIn-reshape-the-recruitment-sector.htm


What do HR managers think?

OfficeTeam recently conducted telephone interviews with more than 500 HR managers at companies with 20 or more employees and they were asked if profiles on networking sites, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, will replace traditional resumes in the future. 

• Nearly 30 percent of the survey respondents believe that online profiles will inevitably replace conventional resumes. 

• The other 70 percent rule out Facebook and LinkedIn profiles replacing resumes in the near future, they agree that social media is gaining acceptance in the hiring sector.

http://smedio.com/2011/03/03/facebook-vs-linkedin-the-better-hiring-tool-for-businesses/