Technology Review: Building a career isn't what it used to be—and we're not talking about the sputtering economy or the 13.3 percent unemployment rate among 20-to-24-year-olds. College graduates entering the job market are supplementing and sometimes circumventing the traditional job-search routine of combing want ads and sending out résumés. They're using online resources to build reputations, demonstrate skills, and give employers a much clearer idea of their strengths.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Your Reputation Is Your Résumé
Technology Review: Building a career isn't what it used to be—and we're not talking about the sputtering economy or the 13.3 percent unemployment rate among 20-to-24-year-olds. College graduates entering the job market are supplementing and sometimes circumventing the traditional job-search routine of combing want ads and sending out résumés. They're using online resources to build reputations, demonstrate skills, and give employers a much clearer idea of their strengths.
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I found this article really interesting because most of what we hear about networking oneself online is a long list of "don'ts." we are constantly told to look over our facebook profiles, tweet the right things, not post anything incriminating because it could be detrimental to our futures should employers find us through those websites. A number of current seniors at my high school changed their names on facebook to joke names and acronyms because they were worried that colleges would find them through these networks. While I don't feel that one should be judged for a job by one's recreations (facebook and twitter are casual locations to me, not ones I use for legitimate career networking if I can avoid it), it is nice to hear about things that we can be doing to make ourselves shine on the internet and maybe turn this trend around to make online presence a positive factor in one's marketing of oneself.
I have found myself very restrained by my resume lately. I feel that expressing yourself through black and white text on a page to be extremely difficult and not enjoyable to read...ever. I do agree that social networking seems to be growing to an amazing extent these days. Im just not sure if its the classiest way to go about things. Especially with networks like Facebook. I dont want to be looking at adds scrolling along the sides of my computer while considering someone for a job.
What caught my attention was the way that the article highlighted the benefits of using the internet to promote your talent. In many ways, it is a resume in itself because the world is connecting to the internet, it is an incredibly global tool that can be useful. News that I usually hear, regarding the internet, are cases of being denied a position at a job or in a school because of what is displayed online. Whether this is one of the social networks or hacking, sometimes it has a incredibly negative effect on many individuals that prevent them from furthering their careers.
Thinking about it now, I have heard of various cases where using a blog is completely beneficial. A family friend was able to work on the design team for American Apparel after creating her own fashion blog that kept track of how to be fashion forward on a budget. I think that this is the direction that resumes are going because the actual piece of paper is turning into a college application. Everyone is going to have the same things on the resume and the extra curricular activities (blogging or any other way to set someone apart from the masses) will matter all the more.
It's interesting to see that the idea of social networking online is starting to become a bigger factor in getting a job, and starting to become more important that just your resume and cover letter. Although, perhaps it isn't too surprising. Networking has always been important in many industries, theater and entertainment no exception, and in reality, it's somewhat more important in theater. The fact that it has slowly been moving toward the online sphere makes perfect sense considering we all have been moving there slowly but surely for the past 10-20 years. I think it's a good thing that more things online in terms of work and what you can show online is being considered more legitimate. It gives more opportunity to more people who want to go do what they want.
I just recently helped my friend reformat his resume for his internship applications, and a big question we kept running into was "Do I write what my job title was, or the jobs I actually ended up doing?" It's needless to say that we're moving into an age where technology is starting to overrule old school paper documentation of work. I think if there was a way to combine the two efficiently enough for the combination to become an industry standard, I feel like my friend's question could be answered more thoroughly for the person who is interviewing him.
I began reading this article skeptically because I thought reputation stemmed from résumé, but it turned out to be the opposite, which is true in this industry. In answer to DPSwag's question about is duty or job title more useful to convey, the most useful thing is to have the person who supervised you in whatever you were doing talk to your prospective employer. The online networking for coders doesn't really apply here, but I have heard of designers looking at prospective interns' facebooks, and indeed it's cool to look for a job from somebody and realize that they have several mutual friends on facebook.
I agree that the technological world is playing a much larger role in the recruitment process today. It always seems more interesting to me to be able to check out a whole website and not just someone's résumé, as it can give a future employer even more time to analyze your sense of organization as well as design (as a part of the navigation) in the content of each page. Personally, during my college search, I know that a university's web presence played an enormous role in my decisions to apply, and I imagine the same would be the case if I was being hired by someone.
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