VisualCV Blog

VisualCV Stands Out In Recent CNET Review!

At VisualCV, we are dedicated to one simple proposition: giving you the best possible vehicle to stand out and highlight your professional achievements in front of employers and the world.   And we are happy to see CNET validating that vision by ranking us as the #1 online resume website in their recent review of the category.  To quote:  "With such a nice design and some cool features, VisualCV is the service to beat."

We plan to continue working hard to ensure they don't ever beat us!

VisualCV News - September 2009

Latest News from VisualCV

To continue to keep VisualCV free for you, we will be incorporating messages and links related to job seeking on our site. These messages will be useful for your job search and can be found on the dashboard and in our blog - no dancing monkey ads here. And as we've promised, we'll NEVER post these messages or links on your personal VisualCV.

We will also continue to offer free employer accounts. Why? Because we know the best way to help our members is to keep the job postings rolling in. Tell your colleagues in HR that they can post job openings on VisualCV for FREE!

If you have ideas or want to advertise to VisualCV members, e-mail advertising@visualcv.com and we'll give you additional details.

Most importantly, thank you for your continued support. We wouldn't be able to do this without you.

What's New?

As for our next release, we can't reveal all the details yet but we'll give you a hint- the changes will help you get hired on VisualCV! Be sure to update your career interests to get the full benefits when these features become available in the next few weeks.

Learn how to update your career interests in the Learning Center.

Are you ready for the job hunt?

Built on the practices of professionals that have been successful in landing their jobs faster and smarter, the Job-Hunt Readiness Evaluator from UpMo uncovers how prepared you are to search for and secure the right job in the next 90 days. Get your personalized report and learn precisely what you can do to become a candidate that gets hired. Then, sign up for a free UpMo trial membership - they'll help you get the job you want faster and confidently move up in your career!

VisualCV Success Stories

What do these three individuals have in common?

• a recent college graduate had three job offers and landed a job within weeks
• a company President landed a role of greater responsibility and higher compensation
• a senior executive transitioned from an industry where she had over 20 years of experience to an emerging industry where she had no experience

They all used a VisualCV in their job search. Also, they all worked with Global Resources, a Certified VisualCV Creator.

The part that is fun for me as a creator, and for my client as well, is to be able to share additional information that strengthens ones background by sharing presentations, publications, photos of awards received, special interests and unique attributes. Both executive recruiters and hiring managers have told me that after clicking on the link to view a candidate's VisualCV their interest level was heightened due to the additional information they were able to glean about the candidate.

-Lucille Pearson, Certified VisualCV Creator, Global Resources

Find Lucille and other Certified VisualCV Creators, Resume Writers, and Career Coaches in the VisualCV Marketplace.

Looking for a job? Know someone who is?

VisualCV has hundreds of employers actively seeking great candidates within the VisualCV community. Applying for a job on VisualCV is easy. Just click the "Get Hired" link and search for jobs. When you find one you like, click the "Apply" button and send the employer your VisualCV. If you're not looking for a job now, share these great opportunities with a friend! Here are some of the jobs we are featuring this week:

• Program Manager in Melbourne, FL
• Staff Accountant in Lakeland, FL
• ABA Provider - Associate in Massachusetts
• Web Designer/Developer in Harrisburg, PA
• Federal Practice, Business Development Manager in Washington, DC
• More jobs on VisualCV...

Stay in touch with VisualCV

Be sure to follow us or subscribe to our various RSS feeds:

• Job Openings
• VisualCV Blog
• @visualcv on Twitter

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Job Seeking Online

By Pierce Resler, Director of Marketing, VisualCV

A few months ago we worked with the good folks over at Sway, Inc. in Milwaukee to get some new primary research on people’s views of online resumes. We actually found Jason Weaver, the company’s CEO, because he’s a member on VisualCV. One of the great byproducts of VisualCV is the ability to connect with professionals across industries. Back to the survey…

We commissioned Sway to survey over 500 people to get insight to their job seeking habits online. Here are some highlights of the findings:

We found that Americans are increasingly turning to the Web instead of the newspaper when it comes to seeking employment opportunities. 50% of all respondents currently have an online resume, have a resume posted online or have a professional profile on a job or career website.  While 68% said the reason they post an online resume or create a professional profile was to find a job, more than a third do so in order to network. 

In addition to  searching the web for job information, career seekers also look for expert advice.  For those individuals who connect with other professionals online, the top reasons are to learn skills or get educated on skills that would help them as a professional and to research other professionals’ knowledge and experiences.  Word of mouth referrals and career boards are the most popular sources for learning about a job but they certainly aren’t the only ones.  According to the study, Americans are most likely to leverage the following sources when seeking information on job opportunities:

Sources for Obtaining Information	% of Americans Agreeing
General Job Board	58%
Friend or Colleague (i.e. Word of Mouth)	52%
Company Web Site	47%
Newspaper Classifieds/Print Ad	41%
Google/Internet Searches	35%
Craig’s List	27%
Staffing Agency	22%
Career Fair	20%

With one in four stated they are currently looking for a job, Americans are in need of tools that will give them a competitive advantage and help them stand out from the competition.   While the look of the resume is clearly important when selecting an online resume tool or establishing a professional profile, individuals also want a solution that is easy to update and whose privacy can be controlled:

Sought After Features of An Online Resume Tool or Business Profile Website	% of Americans Agreeing
The appearance of the resume on the screen	75%
The link to your resume is automatically updated when you make changes	73%
Control of the privacy of your online resume/business profile (i.e., share one-to-one via e-mail, make public to anybody, etc.)	70%
Being able to track views to resume (i.e. the number of views and where they came from	70%
Ability to stand out more than with a traditional resume	68%
Portability: the ability to access it/use it anywhere online	67%
Ability to search for jobs on the same site your online resume/profile is hosted	64%

 
We learned a lot more from the survey but we were glad that the features VisualCV offers like privacy, presentation, access, tracking and control, are meeting the wants of consumers when it comes to online resumes.

Technical details: Sway conducted the online survey in mid March 2009 using an online panel from MarketTools.  The data has a tolerance of +/- 4.4%.

What are you looking for in an online resume or profile? What does VisualCV lack that you need?

Welcome!

Welcome to our new corporate blog. It may have seemed odd, given the focus of our company, that until now we didn't keep a blog. We wholeheartedly agree, and while it's a little lame for us to say this, well, we've been busy. Since launching just over a year ago we've been focusing hard on how to provide the web's best vehicle for professionals to represent themselves and their unique qualifications. And we've been quietly building capabilities for the growing list of employers (800 and counting) that want the advantages of accepting VisualCVs directly. We're not ready to declare victory on these goals, but we are ready to broaden our scope a little.

As one of the founders of VisualCV, I am in awe of what our members do with our service. The quality of many of the VisualCVs I see is astounding. It's very gratifying to see people really latch on to the unique ways in which a VisualCV can help them stand out. And like the rest of the team here, I love to hear from members how their VisualCV has dramatically improved their job search. Please keep these stories rolling in!

We're launching this blog for all the usual reasons, but mainly because we want to voice some of our thoughts about all things VisualCV and more generally recruiting, and to get your feedback on the issues we raise. Hopefully this will lead to some great conversations about where resumes, professional profiles, and recruiting and career management are going.