US-based company offers an online CV service that's flexible and targeted
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There are a seemingly endless number of websites that invite you to post your CV online. But Doug Meadows, VP of VisualCV.com, says its service takes things a bit further while giving job candidates total control.
"I think there may be people who are reluctant to have a public VisualCV but I haven't run into anyone who wasn't happy to have a private one. Nothing stops you from being anonymous and private in the system right from day one."
A VisualCV can contain more than just your CV. Letters of recommendation, a portfolio of your work or your entire career repository can go online.
"You can have links to external websites. You can have not just the usual photos and video but you can also have sound files and every imaginable document type."
Meadows says the company hasn't yet identified a pattern of users taking advantage of the free service, but says it is very popular with some niche crowds.
"The artists, the musicians, the designers, anybody who's in the entertainment and arts where it's not sufficient to say 'I dance'."
Hundreds of New Zealanders are already signed up to the Virginia-based website. Business professionals display charts and graphs of their best project performance or sales records.
"It's not a video CV. We discourage somebody from putting up a video of them talking because nobody's going to listen to it. At the most you do a video handshake [a brief introductory video]." Meadows says the best use of video on the site is from the likes of video journalists putting up programme material that they have produced. But with a variety of file formats to upload and display on any given page, just about anyone can show an example of their work.
"Instead of just talking about the fact that they are an architect or a senior java developer, to actually have some code attached or actually have some links to websites that would show work you've done in the past."
These days anyone who is seriously interested in hiring someone is likely to Google them first. Meadows says VisualCV is a chance to author some of the content potential employers are going to read about you online.
That online presence can be customised for every opportunity which a candidate might be interested in.
Users can alter their online presence without dealing with HTML coding. Potential job candidates are allowed an unlimited number of VisualCVs for free just by filling in a template. Professionals can have one VisualCV which shows off their marketing skills and another one focusing on their sales skills.
But VisualCV has strict privacy controls and settings which a personal website does not have. Meadows says that out of the tens of thousands of CVs in its system, two-thirds of them are set to private.
This means the professional controls when and who can see their information at any time. A private setting allows the user to mail out a single-use URL which is unique.
Even if someone was to share the URL, users can track every share and every view of each VisualCV. They can even revoke sharing privileges from any URL at any time.
Another privacy setting is "members only", which allows only others with a VisualCV to see and contact you. But if you want your CV to be searchable and publicly listed on the web, the "public" setting will serve your site up to the Googlebots.
VisualCV can also be used internally by organisations that have individual or team pages to showcase their skills and achievements.
Some organisations can also have pages of their own to showcase their employment brand and describe what it's like to work for them.
More than 600 companies have such listings so far.
But perhaps the main benefit to organisations is the ability to search the job market for passive candidates.
Professionals can have private listings and be notified only if someone hits on their search criteria. If a company does a search for a certain type of candidate, it could turn up 30 public matches and 70 private ones.
"What we will do is notify the private individual and say, 'Company x may have something of interest to you, click here if you want to reach out to them'. The nice thing is that if your own company does a search, you don't want to come up," Meadows says.
Meadows says that eventually there will be a charge for companies to do searches. But for now VisualCV is funded by recruitment companies who pay to label the software and market it under their brand.
"We change the logos and the colours and make it theirs. It's a private label. I think they like to call it a 'walled garden'. It's [invitation]-only and password-protected."
Executive search company Heidrick and Struggles is using a privately labelled version of the software and also owns shares in VisualCV.
Meadows says the company also intends to offer services for sale to professional job candidates at some stage.
Meadows envisions providing third party verifications for things like credentials and work history for professions such as lawyers and nurses. The certifications could be offered on a one-off basis for around US$25-US$45 ($34-$60) and be part of their online listing. For now there is no charge to use all the site features.
Contact David Maida at:
www.DavidMaida.com
