If you're looking for a job with a traditional resume and cover letter, I have bad news; you may be ruled out on the basis of your "old fashioned" application alone.
Similarly, if you're a recruiter using traditional means like print career ads or web-based job boards, you may have trouble filling open positions.
I spoke to one manager this week that told me anyone who applied for an opening he had with a Word document resume and cover letter automatically went to the bottom of the pile. Admittedly this role had a strong digital component to it, but his statement really caught my attention. He went on to say the ones who did a little YouTube introduction, or built a resume website, or a slideshow on Slideshare all went to the top of the heap. He wanted to see them walk the digital walk.
On the recruiting side, my friends at TMP Worldwide, the world's leading recruitment agency, presented me with compelling evidence that traffic to job boards is waning, and the new hunt for talent increasingly takes place on the search engines, social networks and job aggregation sites. In other words, if your job postings don't appear in Google, LinkedIn or eluta.ca, chances are you aren't getting the cream of the crop.
As an ex-newspaper guy who has occasionally hunted for jobs over the years, I find this transformation amazing and similar to other disruptive trends we've seen wrought by the Internet (think travel agents, the music business and bookselling.) Job hunting and recruiting are all about matchmaking, bringing the parties together.
In years gone by, that match could be made in the careers section - employers advertised there, job seekers scanned there, and voila, matches were made.
Hunters on social media
But now the two groups are often in different places. The job hunters are on social media, roaming around the web, rarely looking at the careers section (exception, small town and weekly papers) and visiting job boards less and less. Recruiters are still leaning on the old tools too often, with decreasing results, mainly because of the mismatch. They are fishing where the fish aren't. Or in Gretzky lingo, they are where the puck won't be. Not a recipe for success.
Job-hunting has gone from door knocking and networking to apply now buttons to multimedia presentations of one's self and portfolio. Not that door knocking and networking went away, social media has added a layer of presentation to the whole exercise. In her article "4 Digital Alternatives to the Traditional Resume" on Mashable.com, Sharlyn Lauby suggests video resumes, a visualCV, a social resume, or your LinkedIn.com profile as possible alternatives or companions to the old chronological resume.
Another Mashable article "How to Spruce Up a Boring Resume" features an infographic by Colorado Technical University that provides great tips on digital techniques to modernize your resume. From screen-friendly fonts to video, social media and hyperlinks, it's a great at-a-glance guide to upgrading your resume for the digital age.
On the human resources side, recruiters need to convert from passive advertisers to publishers and syndicators of jobs, with strong search engine and social media skills, particularly on LinkedIn. The reliance on paid media will no longer cut it, especially in the age of owned media. HR folks accustomed to "renting eyeballs" now have to publish job posts in a way that attracts eyeballs - a brand new game.
With the labor shortage we have looming in Canada both sides need to adapt and get better at this. Our standard of living and way of life depend on it.
Doug Lacombe is president of Calgary social media agency communicatto.com.. His resume is now a Google search of his name; just ignore the guy from Louisiana.
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