by Ruaidhri Horan, Marketing Manager, Abrivia Recruitment
In addition to a targeted CV and carefully crafted Cover Letter, there are many free technologies for job hunters, which can greatly enhance a job hunters image in order to get them noticed in today’s congested marketplace.
A fully complete and comprehensive LinkedIn profile is imperative, especially if a potential employer does not have a copy of your CV. The first thing the majority of people notice when they visit your LinkedIn profile is your profile photo.
Is your profile photo of sufficient quality and is it corporate looking?
Photos which give a wrong first impression are Facebook type social photos, grainy photographs of low resolution and cropped photos from weddings (etc.).If you do not have a corporate LinkedIn profile photo I would strongly recommend visiting your local photography studio, put on your best work clothes and a good photographer will advise you further.
It is also good practice to put some of your main skillsets in the Title section of your profile in addition to comprehensively filling out the Skills section of your profile.
Slideshare is also a very useful tool which allows you to add presentations to your profile, for example you can summarise useful industry blogs or simply publish the generic corporate presentation of your current employer in this section.
If you are a blogger there is a very smart blog facility on LinkedIn. On your Homepage in LinkedIn, just to the right underneath your profile photo is a button titled “Publish a Post”. Once you click this button all you have to do is copy and paste your blog into this section, which is a very attractive, corporate looking template for presenting all your most recent blogs on one single page. Overall this Publish a Post button is a great addition in regards Personal Branding.
Finally, getting 4/5 written endorsements, especially from previous employers is worth its weight in gold and has a very powerful impact on both recruiters and potential employers looking at your LinkedIn profile.
Once your LinkedIn profile is 90-100% complete, you might consider using a website such as branded.me, which takes your LinkedIn information and creates a personally branded website for you. This is a free website for the basic package. However if you want a customised domain and custom e-mail and to get rid of the Watermark, the cost is $7 per month. An alternative to this is to create your own free website on the WordPress platform where you are not limited by templates of the number of pages you can have. This requires basic knowledge of web software which can be garnished easily from YouTube videos. If this sounds like too much hassle the branded.me option is a very quick and professional looking alternative.
Technology which has the potential to revolutionise the recruitment industry is video and video resumes have the potential to greatly differentiate you from the competition. This is especially true in industries such as online media and creative industries. However some traditional and more conservative industries may be slower to adapt. It is a great tool to highlight to potential employers your achievements and what you intend to achieve in the future. There are many options in this regard, from homemade videos to using a professional video production company. Personally I would choose the latter as an unprofessional video resume could actually do your brand damage, unless you are really adept at video technology. Many freelance video producers will charge in the region of €300 for a 3 minute video, which is my view is money very well spent.
