What’s More Important: Your Resume or Your LinkedIn Profile?
Posted on April 02, 2021 by Jeff Rothman, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Should your LinkedIn profile be different from your resume? Is there a way for them to compliment each other and help you cultivate a stronger brand?
One of my career coaching colleagues recently wrote that your LinkedIn profile is the first place people go to find out more about you. I think that’s mostly true, but there’s another question to ask that’s at least as important.
While the way you represent yourself on social media is certainly vital, sometimes your resume will be the first thing people see. So, instead of putting greater importance on either one of them, I encourage my clients to make sure they complement each other. Done right, that’s the best way for you to stand out. Here’s why.
Your resume is primarily about WHAT you’ve done. It looks backward, with a focus on your responsibilities and accomplishments. It’ll primarily be a leave-behind when you’re networking or submitted in response to a job opening. Employers will circulate it around while they’re evaluating you as a prospective candidate.
LinkedIn offers significantly more ways for you to differentiate yourself. It’s your opportunity to talk about WHO you are rather than WHAT you’ve done. It’s where you can tell your story in a more personal, authentic way and talk aspirationally about where you want to take your career and your life. Taking this approach is more likely to engage readers and create a memorable impression because it’ll stand out from the numbing sameness of other resumes and online profiles.
As a former headhunter, I can attest to the fact that most recruiters will check out a candidate’s LinkedIn profile before deciding whether to contact them. Candidates who make an effort to craft an engaging profile were more likely to get a call from me because they obviously cared about how they represented themselves and came across as more “real.”
To sum it all up, instead of putting greater importance on either your resume or LinkedIn profile, be sure they complement each other, not duplicate each other.
