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I am considering putting a line at the bottom of my one-page (US) resume like this:

"References available upon request. For a full CV, please view my LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/MyProfile ."

Is this a good thing to do? Or should I say, "References and full CV available upon request" and have a Word / .txt file ready to email instead?

My main concern is not whether I should have a CV off of LinkedIn (copying and pasting my LinkedIn info to expand my resume is 5-minute job, so I can easily make one at any time), but whether or not the "CV on LinkedIn" seems too casual or lazy. I'm torn between the advantage to the recruiter of being able to go see my profile right away and know it's a complete CV (because I said so), vs. the more traditional "CV available upon request" that requires the recruiter to send me an email and wait for a response to get a job history that they know is complete.

I work in the field of software engineering, if that makes a difference, and have 6 years of experience post-college and 2+ years during college - plus I have contracted for a lot of that time and therefore worked a number of jobs (so some get highly abbreviated on my resume).

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No, it is not lazy, it is a vital part of your CV and should be included on your resume. Check out this section I put in my resume on the front page:

resume snippet

Online profiles or projects that are related to you getting a job should definitely be included on your resume. You want employers to research you and you want to make it easy for them to do it.

Personally, I keep my linkedin CV and my personal resume as close to identical as possible.

I do this because you never know what the people interviewing you are going to be looking at. I put a ton of effort into my personal resume and that is what I want recruiters to use. However, for my current job, the recruiter just used LinkedIn's built-in resume builder and went completely off of that.

Not that this was wrong, but because of this, there were several development and personal projects not listed and it was very hard to try to work them into the conversation when people are going straight from your resume.

Your online profile is your first impression, everything you have regarding your work experience should be up to date and as similar as possible. Because, quite frankly, you have no clue what they will actually be using in your interview.

If you want examples of how I do things, you can click on my name and look at my StackExchange profile on this site and check out my LinkedIn and portfolio (where my resume is) site.

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    I think I get what you are saying, but I try to limit my resume length to one page. My LinkedIn profile is much more detailed. I put effort into each, with the resume working as an attention-grabbing summary and the LinkedIn profile giving full details. Since my resume is pretty short, I don't want to limit LinkedIn to the info in my resume. Would you recommend I change this practice, and switch to a longer resume?
    – Ethel Evans
    May 3, 2012 at 20:36
  • ah yes, I see where you are coming from. There are definitely pros and cons to that as well. I see that I didn't quite address that as well as I would have liked in my question. Please see my edits.
    – Robert Greiner
    May 3, 2012 at 20:38
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    No problem, I don't contribute to these sites for the upvotes/accepts so don't worry about that. I'm just glad I could provide some information that is helpful on some level.
    – Robert Greiner
    May 3, 2012 at 21:04
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    +1 for the listing of online profiles as a component of your traditional resume. They're not a substitute, but they are a valuable supplement.
    – voretaq7
    May 3, 2012 at 21:37
  • This is what I've been doing, and it looks like the right approach. I've yet to have a request for a full CV, and the 1-page short resume seems to be appreciated so far. I have LinkedIn and my relevant Stack Exchange profiles at the bottom.
    – Ethel Evans
    May 17, 2012 at 20:17
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Putting my manager hat on (I'm not a recruiter), your approach would not seem casual or lazy unless you were asked for a full CV and you sent only a short one that sent me off to do more work (best case, I would have to follow a link and read more, but the worst case would have me either type something in or search for your name and hope I found the right person).

Like you (and many others, I am sure!), I have a short CV (2 pages) and a full CV (approx 9 pages). I also have a LinkedIn profile, Careers 2.0 profile, and so on. The short one does say "Full CV available upon request" in one area, and does also have my LinkedIn and Careers 2.0 links in another area. However, we may differ in that when I am contacted by a recruiter or a hiring manager or whomever, I don't send anything until they verify which they want -- long or short -- at which time they control whether or not they are on the hook for extra work. In the case of putting a CV in a resume back (Dice, etc) I put the full one in because that's more about indexing words than anything (so as to get matches); I've never had a recruiter come back and say "could you send your short one?"

The piece of the puzzle that is missing (to me, at least) belongs somewhere near this statement of yours:

I'm torn between the advantage to the recruiter of being able to go see my profile right away and know it's a complete CV (because I said so), vs. the more traditional "CV available upon request" that requires the recruiter to send me an email and wait for a response to get a job history that they know is complete.

What's missing is the use case of how the recruiter is actually going to use it which is to turn around and send a document to a manager. So, while a recruiter might very well say "oh great! LinkedIN -- I'll just look you up", typically they will still want the full CV to send along to a hiring manager. Somewhere along the line, a document will have to change hands. Given that, you'll be in the best position of all if you have your profile links in a standard place in your short document, have "Full CV available upon request" also on that short document, and have a full document at the ready.

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I screen a lot of resumes, and am in the 'two pages or less please' camp. I do appreciate links to more information at the bottom of your resume.

Linked In is a good place to include the information that would be contained in a full CV. If you have a blog or other web presence related to the job you're interested in, I'm interested, by all means include those links.

On a side note, I have a pet peeve about 'References available upon request'. My reaction is always 'Duh! - Thanks for clearing that up, Captain Obvious'.

References are pretty much a given in every job I've ever applied for, and I've never noticed any reluctance on anyone's part to request or provide references. Why waste precious bits typing that?

Edited to add: If you are handing in a paper resume at a job fair, provide a link to an electronic copy of that resume! Trust me, this is VERY helpful to your screener!

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  • Have you ever been in a situation where a reference kept you from hiring someone? I'm not convinced that references provide any value for the hiring manager since the candidate gets to pick and choose who their references are.
    – Robert Greiner
    May 4, 2012 at 18:18
  • @chad - I almost made this a comment, but the last time I did that I was downvoted because my comment should have been an answer.
    – Jim In Texas
    May 5, 2012 at 1:43
  • @Robert - It's happened once in my experience. A candidate gave a reference who really disliked the candidate.
    – Jim In Texas
    May 5, 2012 at 1:45
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    +1 for the 'link to electronic copy of that resume' point. I hadn't thought of that, but can absolutely see the value.
    – Ethel Evans
    Nov 15, 2012 at 18:34
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    @traisjames - Just add a URL, a QR code will make me think, and you don't want that. ;)
    – Jim In Texas
    Oct 16, 2014 at 22:05
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I have a one page CV with a link to my LinkedIn profile but I keep a long version too which I send upon request (which happens often unfortunately).

My short one-page, no nonsense CV :) generated

  • multiple interviews,
  • multiple requests for long CV
  • very positive comments
  • negative comments

In other words, my short CV made some people call me but also made some people not call me.

I think this short story tells well about how the recruitment game works in many cases: One of the recruiters in the same conversation told me that my one page CV is not good enough to send to companies and that people don't have time to read long CVs. After I politely and gently pointed out this logical inconsistency I was asked to provide a long version nevertheless.

In the end I decided that a company which makes me produce a long CV and then never read it is not a place I want to work at.

Personally I believe that long CV for some time will be something that you need to have - like the CV in a Word format few years ago.

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