If you’re a hiring manager, recruiter, or HR professional chances are you’ve been on the receiving end of a candidate’s request to peruse their resume website. Part personal branding tool, part skill summary, these visually enticing landing pages provide visitors with an overview of the job seeker’s capabilities, experiences, and style.

These future-focused personal pages attempt to illustrate what the individual can and wants to do verses what they they’ve done. Instead of listing job titles and previous employers like a traditional resume, they showcase actual examples of prior work.

Clearly, these sites offer potential value to hiring managers. Seeing actual work samples can reduce the risks associated with hiring an external person. The sites can also provide a glimpse at the person’s style, which may help determine whether he/she would fit into the corporate culture. The question is, whether they will be used at all.

Unfortunately, given the workload of the average staffing professional it’s doubtful they would ever click on such links. The truth is, most resumes are scanned rather than reviewed in detail. It’s wishful thinking to believe that a recruiter would comb through your website – ahem, personal page – for additional information. Therefore candidates should think twice before investing the time, money and energy on a resume site.

There are exceptions of course. If you are in a creative profession such as design, writing or public speaking and want to showcase your work, a website can be an ideal on-line portfolio. In those cases, limit the site to professional content unless the personal tidbit you share is directly related to your offering. For example, unless you’re a pet photographer no one wants to see pictures of your turtle.

If you do elect to build a resume site be sure your design aligns to the brand you are trying to convey. For example, don’t paint yourself as a serious, thought leader on nuclear energy and have a playful, slang-field write up. Congruency is key.

Need a career coach? Contact me via www.plotlineleadership.com.

Be sure to check out my new book The Introvert’s Guide to Job Hunting and follow me on Twitter at @timtoterhi