As technical communicators, we will all create one piece of documentation which is critically important to our careers: a resume. Every click on the Internet shows another article with six ways to get your resume to the top of the interview pile and eighty-four blunders that will put your resume underneath the pile. You’re getting ready to submit the perfectly tailored, action phrased, customized to the company, but still suited to you piece of paper that is your resume edited for the 984th time and you suddenly realize that everyone reads those articles. Everyone knows the rules. There’s only so much you can do to make your piece of paper look better than their piece of paper. We’re all looking for a new trick to make us stand out in the crowd and you’ve already used every imaginable action verb in your resume. What else can you do?
The rise of social media has brought many jobseekers and employers online, but there is a more professional option than becoming Facebook friends with the hiring manager. Create an online portfolio to showcase your skills and display your work experience with multimedia examples. Link your portfolio to a professional networking site liked LinkedIn, email it directly to hiring managers, and even add it to your paper resume.
Social media is blurring the lines between personal and professional profiles, so it’s time for you to take charge of your online reputation. While many jobseekers are taking their search online, very few realize that employers are online too. Approximately eighty percent of employers say they look at job candidates online while only ten percent of jobseekers think it happens. What are employers finding? Facebook pictures from Friday night, Twitter posts about your miserable job, and that long-forgotten MySpace account are among the top results. Maybe you haven’t used MySpace in years, but that doesn’t mean new content hasn’t been posted and it certainly doesn’t mean that content won’t reflect on your online reputation.
Your online reputation influences hiring decisions. Some employers referred to inappropriate comments, unsuitable photos, or membership in certain groups as concerns. Imagine yourself walking into a job interview. Would you print posts and photos from your Facebook profile to share with the screening committee? That is essentially what happens when you freely post your personal life online without recognizing privacy and security settings. While social media crosses the fence into the professional world, it is up to you to maintain a professional online reputation. Controlling your privacy settings and only sharing personal information with friends is a good place to start, but building an online portfolio is a big step in the right direction. Imagine yourself walking into a job interview with a showcase of your previous work samples and volunteer experience. That’s the difference when your top result in a search engine is an electronic portfolio versus a social media profile.
An electronic portfolio is your own website and it’s not limited to one or two pages like a standard resume. Expand on your skills, display samples of your work, and use your personality. This is about you, not just what you do. Your talent and skills may very well expand through experience other than your employment history. Maybe it’s a hobby or volunteer experience that doesn’t have a place on your resume. This is a showcase of your life, not just your job, and it is meant to demonstrate your abilities.
Imagine your painstakingly flawless piece of paper is head-to-head with an equally precise piece of paper, but only one will be invited for an interview. It’s an impossible decision until the employer notices the link to your portfolio. What’s this? It’s your advantage and it just transformed you from a piece of paper to an actual person.
...and my research starts here.
...and my research starts here.
