Is the job candidate too hip for you?

A few weeks ago I was doing a training session for a hiring search commiitee on our online Applicant Tracking System . It was a routine session, one I have done 20 times before, the standard stuff - here's how you log in, here's how you find your candidates, here's how you review their resumes.  It was routine right up to the point when I clicked on the link to the first candidate's resume and we were all presented with something like this:

It was a resume, or CV, built using the VisualCV service. Visual CV describes their service as "A better resume, online. Include video, pictures and a portfolio of your best work samples. Securely share different versions with employers, colleagues and friends, and control who sees what."

It is also free for candidates to use, which is nice. 

But the ability for the candidate to effectively create a 'applicant website' using Visual CV is very powerful.  Add videos showing your skills or demonstrating a product you have developed.  Add slideshows showing off your designs and ideas. Include audio clips of clients attesting to your wonderfulness. Link to your blog that contains evidence of your thought leadership and expertise.

Back to my training session. 

The thing I immediately noticed was that the hiring committee had no idea what they were looking at.  I had to stop the training to explain and practically demo Visual CV for them, and explain how a candidate who would create a Visual CV is certainly one comfortable with new technology and was on the cutting edge so to speak. I even advocated giving this candidate extra points for creativity and vision.

The moral of the story?

More and more of your candidates will be using services like Visual CV, giving you their blog address, and their LinkedIn or Facebook profiles to use in your evaluation process.  Don't stay hung up on the old classic 'paper resume in Word format' paradigm.

Your candidates are moving forward, your hiring thought processes need to move forward as well.

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Your Corporate Job Site

Sometimes I think we are worrying too much about our corporate job sites, trying to make them really stand out and grab hold of prospective applicants attention. But do you really believe prospects are coming to your jobs page first?  When you want to find anything on the Web, what do you do first?

It seems to me that we need to invest at least as much time in all the areas we can't completely control, things like Google search, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr to name a few. The need to get your page to the top of a Google search  seems obvious by now, but still many organizations can't seem to master.  Google your company name followed by 'Jobs' or 'Careers' and see what you find. Search for your brand name on Flickr or YouTube. 

Are you hiring recent college graduates?  How does you brand stack up on Facebook?  Are you LinkedIn?

Chances are your prospects are in some or all of these places, are you still patiently wating (and hoping) they will eventually find you?