Your resume and LinkedIn are both important—each for different reasons. It’s vital to remember, though, they must be consistent with each other. And that’s more difficult than it seems.

Use LinkedIn for “inbound marketing.” That is, for hiring managers who are looking someplace else than the resumes an HR manager might have collected for her/him and who wishes to find a candidate who may not be actively “looking.”

A resume, on the other hand, can and should be edited to the job for which the candidate is applying [at very least,  the job objective must be job-specific]. Having been a hiring manager for many years I’ll add personally that a student or recent grad resume should be short—certainly less than a page.  Nothing compelled me to trash a resume more quickly than one with long superfluous details or “me too” personal facts like “enjoy watching and playing all kinds of sports,” or “proficient in Microsoft Office.”

A lot of executives are predicting “the death of the resume,” the result of LinkedIn’s popularity. I think that day is far in the future.

My concern for many students is the frequent reference to resumes or “CVs” as advertisements for themselves. That’s often how students and recent grads refer to the document. In fact, though, as a long-time hiring manager who’s discussed the topic with other executives, a resume is used primarily to eliminate candidates. It’s a burden having to read through a stack of resumes.  If the hiring manager encounters a typo or poorly constructed sentence, that’s “permission” to toss the resume in the trash.  And that feels good! 

An important point to note is that a resume is personal.  Aside from the typical rundown of the candidate’s employers, work accomplishments and education, I want to see something personal. Where did the applicant grow up and what’s special about that town? Tell me something unusual about a hobby or special interest.  And provide a fact about yourself I’ll never forget—and, in fact, would like to know more about!

One of the highest importance elements of a resume if the job objective.  If the document is to reach the hiring manager’s desk, it must match the job for which s/he is hiring.  But thanks to word processing software, every resume can be tailored to each job or employer.

There’s been a lot of discussion about QR codes in various circumstances. I think their novelty has evaporated. The reason?  QR codes don’t bring the user information that’s  promised “instantly.” Even a 10-second wait for a smartphone to find a LinkedIn profile or other online content is too much time during a harried business day. HR people may take time, but HR people don’t have the authority to hire. 

Many hiring managers asset they’ve found the best candidates when those candidates weren’t “looking.” That makes a fertile and current LinkedIn profile valuable.  The most powerful quality offered by a great LinkedIn profile is it can be made discoverable through the use of keywords.  [Words a hiring manager would use to describe a candidate—not words the candidate would use to describe her/himself.]

So be discoverable by making your profile “keyword rich.” And format it so it’s easy to read, interesting, and error-free.

There are several good online courses focused on the effective use of LinkedIn for purposes of being “discovered.” At this juncture, and to my knowledge, no college or university of which I’m aware offers such a course.

And don’t think, just because you’re still in school, you’re too young for a LinkedIn profile. There are a lot of reasons to start even before launching your career which I’ll address in later blog entries.