How should your CV differ from your LinkedIn profile?

While in the past people relied on actively contacting companies over job applications and submitting their CV’s directly, LinkedIn continues to change the game. Linkedin provides another avenue when it comes to job searching, giving you the chance to create a social media style profile to attract potential employers. The best part is that you don’t always have to seek them out either, merely setting up your profile in a certain way to attract interest, messages, and offers from companies looking to hire. Having said this, the traditional CV still lives on in the digital age and both job hunting techniques should be used if you want to maximise your chances of employment. However, your CV and your LinkedIn profile should look very different and if they don’t, you’re going to miss out on opportunities.

Your CV and your LinkedIn should be set out differently, serve different purposes and are read by different people, for different purposes, so designing them in an identical manner is a mistake. Here are some of the key differences between a CV and a LinkedIn profile –

Catering to a specific company –

When it comes to your LinkedIn profile, what you see is what you get. Each and every potential employer on the platform can see the same profile and everything you have chosen to add to it. This gives you little room for customisation, not allowing you to cater each application to a specific company or sector. When it comes to your CV, you should ideally be crafting a separate one for each job you apply to, specifically designing the application with that company and opportunity in mind. You should only include relevant details, work experience, contacts, and qualities with a select company and opportunity in mind. If you simply copy and paste everything from your LinkedIn profile onto a CV, you simply will not stand out in a specific industry/sector.

Space –

This should be the most visibly obvious difference between your online profile and your CV. On LinkedIn, you have the platform for unlimited information about yourself and your work history. You can include in-depth descriptions outlining exactly what you did at each job, what you learned, what your responsibilities were, etc. You can include your hobbies, your best skills, and any number of personal details you want. In contrast, your CV should ideally be contained on two pages. Employers want to be able to skim the CV and learn everything they need to know about you in a matter of minutes. Less is more in this respect. It is also important to remember to never disclose any confidential information in relation to your current or previous employment on either your CV or your Linkedin profile

Online –

LinkedIn offers the chance to add various online links, attachments, publications, videos, and more, thus expanding your profile even further. In the offline and paper world, this simply is not possible, so you have to make the most of the words you have and explain your biggest achievements.

Formality –

In short, your CV should be written in a formal tone, whilst LinkedIn should be formal but can also accommodate a degree of informality due to the nature of the messaging platform.

For further information or advice on effectively setting up your LinkedIn profile please email to contact@saxtonleigh.co.uk

We will be publishing a separate blog in the next week to reveal the best ways to attract specialist recruiters on LinkedIn.