The People Bulletin

At the recent book launch of Career Coach by Corinne Mills the audience were reminded that your social media profile on LinkedIn is as important as your CV, and that this should be accurate and represent a true image of your career history and aspirations.

This idea has now been further backed up by a quantitative survey of recruiters and HR managers in the UK between June 2010 and April 2011 which showed that face-to-face and social networking was used by 74% of the recruiters and HR managers surveyed. Of the most useful social/professional networking sites for sourcing candidates, LinkedIn topped the list (61%) but surprisingly Facebook was cited by over half (52%) as the second most useful site, demonstrating that social media networks and data sources are being used increasingly for professional benefit.

The future of recruitment?

Developments in technology are also making their mark in the recruitment process. While just 17% stated they used video CV’s now, this jumped up to almost half (48%) who said they would consider using them in the future. Similarly, webcam/video technology is not used commonly in selection process now but 40% said it was likely to increase in the next five years.

Nicola Deas, practice leader of career management at Right Management, said: “It’s critical, particularly in this difficult job market, that job seekers have support to develop the right skills and have access to the right opportunities to find employment. It’s never been more important to learn how to effectively network with peers – online and offline – as well as being able to create a great online profile with compelling messages that will get noticed by employers and recruiters. It’s not enough just to have a good CV today”.

 www.rightmanagement.co.uk

Note: Data was collected through a quantitative survey of 100 recruiters and HR managers in the UK between June 2010 and April 2011