idealpeople blog

Welcome to Part Three of tips for writing a killer CV.

Now you’ve read part one and part two and you’ve taken as many adjectives out of it as possible and added benefits to your features, you’re ready for the next step: setting your CV free.

The “normal” way of doing this is to go to one of the major on-line recruitment sites, sign up and wait. As one tactic, it’s not bad: and if you’re in a rush to get a new job then great. If you’re not in a rush, or if you don’t want to put up with the 400 phone calls about jobs which are miles away from where you want to work, or which rely on skills you don’t have, then there is another way of getting yourself noticed online - put it on your very own, dedicated, personalised CV page.

We do lots of Google Hacking at Idealpeople. Google Hacking is our term for a practice more widely used in the US than in the UK, but it’s on the up. As a boutique staffing firm serving the interests of some of the worlds most demanding technology companies, who are right at the cutting edge, we often get requirements which are so niche, we have to do stuff way outside of the normal ‘Recruiter’ job spec. Here’s the regular recruiter approach:

Post Advertisement - Screen and Filter Response - Build Shortlist - Send CVs to Client - Arrange Interview - Make Offer

We build loads of intelligence into sourcing (and we won’t be sharing all of it here) but one of these advanced sourcing techniques is Google Hacking.

Google Hacking isn’t new, but it’s is a bit of a ‘black art’ and means writing Boolean Strings* into Search Engines, with some of the specific key words that relate directly or indirectly to the talent we are hunting for.

A typical Boolean String might look something like this:

(Java OR C++ OR Perl OR Python) AND (cv OR vitae OR resume) AND (”Artificial Intelligence” or “Pattern Recognition”)

But the operators (terms) in the search could just as easily be “Project Manager” AND “Prince2″, “Business Analyst” “Marketing Director” “Presales Consultant” or even CTO!

And the outcome?

It won’t surprise you to know that there are hundreds and hundreds of people who have already got the self-publicity bug, and have stuck their resume online. In fact, of the 564 links this Google search sent up - there were more than half linking to decent CVs who met this search criteria. Now… where’s the phone….

The principal benefit to you? Well, for a start you don’t get the 400 phone calls from Recruiters - indeed, instead the only Recruiters who will call you are the ones who have gone to the length of using Google as a candidate generation tool, who generally are the ones who a) know what they’re looking for and b) have a clear idea of what they’re talking about.

And the drawbacks? Well, let’s look at some objections:

What about Privacy? I don’t want my personal details online
Fine. By all means, DON’T include your phone numbers, full address and postcode. What you should include as a minimum is an email id - and you should ideally check it regularly even if you aren’t actively seeking work, it’s good to keep abreast of what’s out there.

What if my employer finds it online and HR drag me in for a meeting as they think I am leaving?
If you are super cautious, you could even replace the name of your current employer with “Major Investment Bank” or “FTSE 200 IT Systems Integrator”, and even be vague about details - as long as your ’skills’ section is up to date, you should still get hits and be ‘found’ by online Staffers, Sourcers, Researchers and Headhunters looking for talent just like you!

I get enough VIAGRA Spam. Won’t this email just get crawled by “Spam Bots” on the web?
Nope. The IT Savvy amongst you will already know that Mister Michael.Page@Gmail.com can avoid this kind of trauma by changing to Michael “dot” Page “at” Gmail “dot” com - and still be contactable.

I hate recruiters. Most of them are rubbish.
OK, fair enough, but wouldn’t you also agree that if a recruiter had taken the time and effort to cook up a search string targeting people with EXACTLY the kind of experience you have, that the contact might be more welcome/appropriate.

I work in I.T, but I’m not a Web Developer. I can’t (or can’t be bothered) to set up, host and develop my own site.

No problem at all. In this wonderful world of Web 2.0 and especially blog sites, there are a million bits of free software available out there which offer a rich and simple user experience in terms of getting content online. Most Blog Applications are indexed by Google, and so you will still be found, even if you are inside a web application. You don’t need to know how to program in PHP, Flash, Perl, HTML or XML, and you don’t even need to learn Dreamweaver or Frontpage. So, our advice is, if you can’t get the site up and running yourself, use someone else’s.

One company I know who use this technique almost religiously to generate candidates for their coolest positions are probably in the top 3 ‘most desirable tech companies to work for EVER’ - that’s right… it’s the mighty Google (not forgetting Yahoo, Cisco, Microsoft). I assume that Google and the rest of these companies, like us at Idealpeople figure that if a candidate is switched on enough to put themselves up there in cyberspace, they are ‘ahead of the curve’ in terms of mindset as well.

As well as the benefits of getting ’spotted’ by the hottest companies and recruiters, you can also use the internet site which holds your CV as a means to get interactive, and go way beyond what a vanilla Word or PDF document offers; publicising other information relevant to what you offer the world, such as showreels, testimonials, your Linkedin profile, code samples, and any other related professional information.

So, to conclude: there are really no excuses for not putting yourself out there in cyberspace if you want to maximise the value of your CV, and all the hard work you put into it. You can be assured that the approaches will be targeted, mostly professional, and very often, by recruiters with extra-ordinary job opportunities to offer.