SXSW Panel Wrap Up: Resumes & Profiles
Our team had a great panel discussion last Monday, March 12th at SXSWi. We spent a lot of time digging into the topic in advance and prepared for a session with a little bit of advice and lots of examples. After spending time pouring over our own resumes and profiles, we came up with a few consistent nuggets to help people develop an online presence that would resonate with employers.
We each had one key piece of advice:
- Mine – Professional & personal lines blur into one another; show me how they intertwine.
- Kristy Duncan – Remember you’re telling a story. Don’t bury the lead.
- Jenn Jongsma – Proofread, proofread, proofread. Repeat.
- Kevin Lawver – If you want to work on the web, you need to live there.
It boils down to the fact that you need to find a way to bring together the disparate parts of your life across the web. We reviewed the resume and profiles of chemist where an online life isn’t necessarily part of the job. However, in her LinkedIn profile we pointed to the fact that she belongs to different scientific organizations or that when you search for her name you can find that she has attended chemistry meetups. It’s that sort of meshing that becomes attractive to me as a potential employer.
Many of the issues we noted were inconsistency in bios across the web. One thing on about.me, another on Twitter, another on LinkedIn and yet something different on a personal website. While I don’t personally believe they have to be identical, it’s nice where there are thematic ties so that I see who you are reinforced everywhere.
It’s still something I’m working through on my own profiles. I’ve now changed the language on my LinkedIn and personal site here to reflect the Twitter bio, then found a way to weave that into what I do for a living, so I can imbue my work life with a little bit of flair.
Our team did compile a list of related articles and Tweets and have provided a quick link to our presentation within that. That can be found on an open Google doc here.