VisualCV: The Social Media Executive Resume

In a blog post last fall, personal branding and social media expert Dan Schawbel predicted that the traditional paper or digital resume will be extinct within 5 years, when all media will completely converge and recruiters will “rely 100% on the internet (and personal relationships) for recruitment.”

No one knows for sure that this will happen, but everyone surely knows by now that having a strong on-brand online footprint is no longer optional for job seekers, especially those at the c-suite and senior executive level.

It’s all about defining your executive brand and then creating your brand and value proposition messaging to express consistently across all your career marketing communications channels – paper/digital documents, online presence, and in-person interactions.

If you need help with branding and creating your resume and bio, see:

10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand

How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Brand Resume in 10 Steps

How to Write a C-level Executive Career Brand Biography

Websites, and especially blog-based websites, are the best way to claim your name online, and build brand evangelism, credibility, and visibility around your value proposition, subject matter expertise, and thought leadership. But not everyone has the time to build a blog or website.

A VisualCV is a great stand-in. Why?

• A fully-fleshed out, multi-media rich VisualCV can be your one-stop online destination for recruiters and hiring decision managers to find just about all they’ll need to know about your promise of value.
• It’s FREE and takes relatively little time to put together.
• It works well in tandem with your LinkedIn profile, linking each to the other, and providing that much more information about you.
• It goes a LinkedIn profile one better by allowing as many links as you want throughout the page to other on-brand information about you.

Build out the main section of your VisualCV with your resume and pieces of your career biography, then get creative with the sidebar, which can be placed on the left or right-hand side.

Here’s what you can do with your VisualCV:

• Create and embed media clips or a demo video of what you can do for your target companies.
• Embed photos of you accepting a prestigious award, presenting at a function and/or other notable achievements, with brief descriptions of their import.
• Your career portfolio – link to PDF files of all your supporting career marketing documents: Executive Resume, Career Biography, Achievement Summary, Leadership Initiatives Profile, Reference Dossier, etc.
• Include a high-impact graph to illuminate how you impacted bottom line for past companies.
• Embed links to your best blog posts, white papers, and any online publications that showcase your outstanding writing skill, subject matter expertise, and thought leadership.
• Embed letters of recommendation and accolades that support your personal brand.
• Embed any of the following types of files: .doc, .pdf, .ppt, .jpg, .gif, .png, .mov, .wmv and more.

You can create as many versions of your VisualCV as you want, each with a unique privacy setting, to share with distinct groups.

You completely control access to your VisualCVs through privacy settings, and share with recipients you choose – companies, colleagues, customers, and friends. You can track who sees your VisualCV and when.

Added benefits of having a VisualCV:

• Improves your Google ranking.
• Positions you as social media and tech-savvy.
• Allows you to get comfortable with new branding tools, such as video.
• Allows others accessibility to your whole brand picture and all your career documents on one web page, with one click – no need for people to open email attachments.

A few more smart ways to use your VisualCV:

• Include your VisualCV badge or link in your email signature.
• Add a link to your VisualCV as a “website” at the top of your LinkedIn profile.
• Link to your VisualCV when you guest blog, comment on blogs, write book reviews on Amazon, or publish anything online.

Related posts:

Does Your Online Identity Scream “Hire Me”?

Online Executive Personal Branding: Are You Digitally Distinct?

10 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Online Without a Blog