How closely should LinkedIn match my Resume? (Article)

Written by
Eric Pye
CPA Alberta

Published
Nov 27, 2018

Nov 27, 2018 • by Eric Pye

A client asked me the other day how closely her LinkedIn profile should match her Resume.

My answer: They're completely different beasts.

Resumes should be tailored to a specific job. You'll change your career summary, education and job description activities and accomplishments for each application for relevance to your target role.

LinkedIn can't be tailored to a specific job, so your profile will naturally be more generic. Your profile and resume should be congruent with each other (no surprises or weird mismatches), but not identical.

Some tips for your LinkedIn profile:

  1. If you're targeting a specific type of job, give your profile more focus. Highlight relevant technical, soft and I.T. skills, along with job-specific accomplishments.
  2. If your search is more widespread, in different industries and varying role types, focus on transferable skills and accomplishments that will be relevant to a range of potential target jobs within your interest areas.
  3. Reduce the level of detail in your job descriptions, perhaps going so far as to give only job title, employer and dates. This way there won't be discrepancies between job descriptions in your resume and profile (some information will be missing, but nothing will be different).
  4. Your job titles, employer names and dates should match your resume exactly. The last thing you want is a hiring manager comparing your resume and LinkedIn profile and seeing inconsistencies in job details, and questioning your honesty.

To conclude, the two should be consistent, but not an exact match.

 

This article originally appeared on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-closely-should-linkedin-match-my-resume-eric-pye-crs/.

CPA Alberta