Today, when you get your name in front of a potential startup looking to hire you, you can count on one of their first actions being plugging that name into Google. What will that search reveal, will it make you look more or less employable?
We live in a digital age, and its high time that you took your resume onto the internet. An online resume offers you far more flexibility and opportunity for creative expression than you get from paper printouts – something many tech savvy startups want. Consider these key benefits of uploading your resume to an online service:
Multiple Versions
It’s simply a fact that every job opportunity calls for you to emphasize certain parts of your skill-set and work history and de-emphasize others. Building an online CV allows you to easily create a new version of resume tailored to the opening at hand. Don’t settle for a bland, overly-broad resume that impresses nobody by trying to please everybody! Create multiple resumes so that every one you submit shows you off at your absolute best.
Flexibility
Back in the dark days of all-paper resumes, few discoveries were more frustrating than the realization you’d left a key fact off or made a minor typo. Since you often printed your resumes on your classiest, costliest paper, fixing these mistakes and omissions was costly as well as time-consuming! Nothing could be simpler than correcting an online CV. It’s just a matter of a few clicks and a little typing. You can even do it on a phone!
Google Searchability
It’s no accident that I led off this article by talking about the increasingly-central role Google plays in hiring decisions these days. Surveys show that a whopping 80 percent of employers use Google to seek out job candidates and learn more about them. By posting your online resume to a service that makes it searchable, you take a big step forward in professionalizing your online reputation. A slick online CV will serve as the “welcome mat” that Google throws down in front of your next employer. It’s a far better introduction than an album of college party pics on Facebook!
Easy To Share
A paper resume can be nearly as much of a pain to get rid of as it is to create. Stop worrying about the hassles of mailing your resume out or clumsily handing it to a potentially-useful professional contact. Your online resume is easy to share with anybody via email. You can also link directly to your online CV from your social profiles, your website, or anywhere else on the web, expanding your reach that much further.
Easy To Extend With Links
If you want to, you can include links to other online resources in your online resume. If you have a professional website, a portfolio, or other online work of which you’re particularly proud, you can incorporate it into your CV to ensure that potential employers have access to a more in-depth (and impressive!) tour of your work.
Creativity
While plain text is the rule of the day with a paper resume, in an online CV, you have the opportunity to add multimedia elements to the information you give to employers. Photos, videos, and portfolio pieces can all be incorporated directly into your resume. Just remember to flex your creative muscles in moderation; you don’t want to overwhelm readers. Tight editing is still important for online resumes!
You Can Still Print Your Resume
There are still some employers and some situations where only a hard copy of your resume will do. This is no problem with an online resume! A click of the mouse sends your CV (or a version of your CV tailored to the specific job, see above) to the printer. If you want to create an offline CV, this blog post explains how to do so.
Creating an online resume is essentially a no-downsides proposition. It can do everything a traditional resume does, and so much more besides! Creating and maintaining an online resume is incredibly easy when you consider how much they do for your job prospects. You have a wide range of options available when it comes to online resume services; find the one that best suits your needs!