In today’s digital age, job seekers have more options than ever when it comes to presenting themselves to potential employers. With easy access to professional networking sites like LinkedIn and the ability to upload resumes online, candidates can showcase their qualifications and experience in multiple ways. But when it comes down to it, do employers really prefer LinkedIn profiles or old-fashioned resumes? There are pros and cons to each approach.
The case for LinkedIn
With over 675 million users worldwide, LinkedIn has become the go-to professional networking platform for job seekers and employers alike. Here are some of the key advantages LinkedIn offers:
- Broader picture of candidate – A LinkedIn profile provides a more comprehensive overview of a candidate beyond just a one or two-page resume. It showcases their full work history, skills, recommendations from past colleagues, professional associations, certifications, and other details that illustrate their qualifications.
- Verification of credentials – Employers can cross-reference details like job titles, companies, dates of employment, education history, and more to fact check that the candidate is presenting accurate information.
- Active engagement and updates – Candidates who keep their LinkedIn profile properly updated demonstrate they are actively managing their career. New role changes, skill endorsements, course completions etc illustrate the candidate is current and investing in their professional development.
- Insights into soft skills – The recommendations and content candidates share on their LinkedIn profile provides useful insights into soft skills like communication abilities, work ethic, teamwork, leadership capabilities etc.
- Demonstrates tech-savviness – By having a strong online professional presence, candidates showcase their ability to use technology platforms effectively for networking and career advancement.
In many ways, LinkedIn provides useful supplementary information about a candidate that a resume alone cannot. Hiring managers get a better sense of a candidate’s full professional capabilities and achievements from a combination of their resume and LinkedIn profile.
The case for resumes
At the same time, there are some key advantages resumes continue to offer compared to LinkedIn profiles:
- Concise and focused – A resume concisely summarizes only the most relevant qualifications, skills, and experience for a specific job opening. This is tailored to what the employer is looking for rather than a comprehensive catalog of everything the candidate has done.
- Emphasis on accomplishments – While LinkedIn focuses on cataloging responsibilities, resumes highlight tangible achievements, quantifiable results, and career progression with each role.
- Customization for each application – Candidates can tweak their resumes to align with the required qualifications and keywords of the particular job they are applying for.
- Consistent format for easy comparison – With standardized sections like Summary, Skills, Work Experience, and Education, resumes offer employers an easy way to scan and compare multiple candidates.
- Overview in a single document – Busy hiring managers don’t have to click back and forth between multiple sites. The resume contains relevant highlights in one place.
So while LinkedIn offers useful background information, the focused content and customization ability of resumes continue to make them valuable for job applications.
How employers utilize LinkedIn and resumes
Most employers use LinkedIn and resumes in tandem during the hiring process. Here are some of the ways they leverage both:
- LinkedIn for initial screening – Before even looking at resumes, recruiters may screen candidates based on the quality of their LinkedIn profiles. Things like number of connections, endorsements, engagement level, and skills listed can be useful filters to narrow down applicants.
- Resume to evaluate qualifications – After identifying promising candidates based on LinkedIn, recruiters then use the resumes to evaluate their qualifications, skill sets, work experience, and professional background in more detail.
- LinkedIn to verify accuracy – Employers cross-reference details mentioned on resumes with the candidate’s LinkedIn profiles to fact check for accuracy and consistency.
- Both to assess soft skills – Recommendations on LinkedIn and achievement descriptions on resumes provide insights into the candidate’s communication abilities, work ethic, adaptability, and other soft skills.
- LinkedIn for engagement after applying – Following up with candidates after they apply by connecting with them on LinkedIn helps continue the conversation and keep them engaged.
By leveraging both LinkedIn and resumes at different stages of screening and assessing candidates, employers get the most well-rounded perspective on each applicant.
Key takeaways on preferred profiles
Based on surveys of recruiters and hiring managers, here are some key takeaways on how employers evaluate LinkedIn versus resumes:
- 93% of recruiters check candidate’s LinkedIn profile before considering them for a role.
- 92% of recruiters say the consistency between a candidate’s resume and LinkedIn profile is an important factor in the hiring decision process.
- 87% of recruiters believe LinkedIn profiles provide more insight into soft skills than resumes alone.
- 83% of employers say they are more impressed by Project Experience on LinkedIn profiles versus traditional Work Experience on resumes.
- 75% of employers pay more attention to skills listed on LinkedIn rather than solely relying on resumes.
- But 80% still consider the resume to be the most important document in evaluating a candidate’s qualifications.
The key takeaway is that most employers today use both LinkedIn and resumes together to thoroughly evaluate candidates before making hiring decisions.
Tips for job seekers to stand out
Based on what employers look for, here are tips for job seekers to stand out:
- Invest time in building a stellar LinkedIn profile that aligns with your professional brand and capabilities.
- Keep LinkedIn profile updated regularly with new role changes, skills, courses, projects etc.
- Customize resume for each application using keywords from the job description.
- Ensure consistency in information, accomplishments, and skills highlighted on both profiles.
- Include numbers, metrics, and quantifiable achievements reflecting the business impact you delivered.
- Showcase soft skills like communication, leadership, teamwork through endorsements, testimonials and project descriptions.
- Leverage LinkedIn to connect with recruiters and hiring managers after applying.
By optimizing both their online professional brand and resumes tailored for each application, candidates can maximize their chances of securing that next great job opportunity.
Conclusion
While resumes and LinkedIn profiles have their own advantages, most employers today leverage both during the hiring process. LinkedIn provides broader picture of candidates’ professional capabilities and growth. Resumes offer more concise and focused summaries of qualifications for specific roles. Job seekers need to ensure their resumes and LinkedIn profiles are robust, aligned, and customized to stand out from the competition. The candidates who can showcase their full professional brand and distill it down into targeted applications tend to have the most success getting hired.