No one is going to maintain your career. So, where do you start? Here are some "Resume" and "Online Presence" tips to help.

Imagine you are in the market for a new job, or you're thinking that you want to be on the market. How is your marketing machine working for you? How does your online resume stack up to the competition? How well does your LinkedIn profile match your real skills? Are unwanted people reading your "private" social posts? Can anyone find you online or are you lost on page 43 of a Google Search?

If you aren't certain your potential employers are going to be stunned by your work, or if your answers to these questions aren't certain... you need some help. Let's talk about what you can do to give yourself an edge.

Make no mistake... NO ONE IS GOING TO DO THIS FOR YOU. You have to do this yourself. Immediately.

To get noticed and to get through the screening process, we'll start with your resume. After all, what's a resume for? It's not supposed to get you the job. It's to get you an interview. 

Resume Tips

• A reader should be able to get the highlights of your experience through a quick scan of your resume. Think 6 seconds. Then... think 2. What ARE you? Can they figure that out instantly? If not, then you have work to do.
• Your resume must be attractive when you send it through email, print it out, and when you post it online. The best way to ensure that is to save it as a PDF. Electronically, that's about as good as you can get and be able to expect most people to be able to open it. 
• Your resume must be well-formatted in a manner that is appropriate for this century. I.e. no tables or other graphical weirdness. No matter how cool it looks, these have to be parsed by programs (resume readers) and if the program gets confused, your resume gets tossed.
• It must be written in a way that is easy to be read by humans. 
• Finally it must be edited so it is tight (brevity is important) and so it gets to the meat of your experience quickly and succinctly. No one wants to read War and Peace.

Once you have your resume whipped into shape, you can start getting your online presence aligned with it. 

 

Online Presence Tips

• Get a LinkedIn profile. You can expand your resume sections here in a more detailed manner. It is an "addendum" to your resume, not a mere duplicate.
• If you have your own site, make it easy to find your resume. That resume should match your LinkedIn profile closely enough that there should be no questions when the two are compared. 
• Make sure all of your links work. Nothing says "I'm not paying attention" like having a broken link to your resume, for example.
• Check the security settings on your Facebook (and all social media). Make sure only the people you want to see your stuff have access. Can't figure it out? If there's something you don't want seen... delete it asap. 
• Pay attention to what you're saying online. If you don't want the HR manager at your next company to show it to the person with whom you'd be interviewing, probably should delete it. And never write that stuff again!

Okay, that's enough to sink your digital claws in for now. Questions? Just post 'em in the comments!

If you want some personal attention, email me at billyjoecain@gmail.com