A Linked In Profile is NOT a Resume

Recently a member of my team received an email from a  client.
The recruiter had written a nice summary of the candidate's qualifications and included a link to his LinkedIn profile. 
In this case the candidate wasn't exactly sure about if he was interested in the job and had several questions that the recruiter couldn't answer in full because they were of a technical nature of the job.
The recruiter decided to send over the summary and LI profile to see if the client wouldn't mind talking to the candidate (the client has been really good at this for this position as it is rather complicated).

The response from the client to the recruiter was:

I am looking through his LinkedIn profile and it reads very heavy with pre-sales and data center technologies.

While these are certainly strong aspects of the role, the role is also a Senior Network Engineer flavor.

In other words, actual configuration, deployment and support of routers, switches, firewalls, security solutions, etc. I need someone that is as strong at building enterprise network environments as much as talking to and “selling” them.

I will wait for his resume to look for specific network engineering experience before calling him.

This is a perfectly legitimate response, and yes could have been mitigated by the recruiter waiting for the resume, however it reminded me of something else; as a recruiter, job seeker, or a client you have to remember that Linked In profiles are not a substitute for a resume.

Many LI users tailor their profiles to the specific career or industry that they are in or want and list only relevant experience. Heck, if I put all my jobs and duties I ever had in my life on my profile you could read War & Peace faster. Part of the purpose of the profile is to establish yourself as an expert in a particular field.

If you are really interested in a candidate remember to use their LI profile as a guide to asking more questions about their experience relating to your position and not the complete history of their experience.

Thanks for reading!

Ev

A Heck of A Nice Guy