Check Out this Non-Traditional Resume!
A few months ago I wrote about a blog post from Seth Godin on the death of the resume. This morning I had an email from Jeff Widman one of the people who responded to Seth's call for interns, pointing me to this very non-traditional resume he submitted to apply for the job. Apparently with a few tweaks, he also sent his "resume" to a number of other people as well. While Jeff didn't get the internship, he did get a chance to work on another project with Seth as well as offers for several other opportunities.
This is another example of getting creative in building your personal brand. The presentation itself is clever and quick, although you'll note from his blog entry that it took Jeff 50 hours and a full notebook of ideas to put together. It also has "legs"--note that I'm embedding it here, adding to Jeff's "Google Juice," and giving him exposure to another audience. The fact that Jeff emailed me to point me to his presentation is pretty smart too. He found me through a trackback to Seth's original post and figured that if I was interested in the idea of non-traditional resumes, I'd be interested in looking at his.
Jeff is who we're competing against in the job market, folks. In some niches we might still be able to get away with the same old same old for awhile, but I don't think that will last for long. This is another piece of that online personal branding and digital identity we've been discussing that becomes increasingly critical in order for us to get noticed.
Thank you for this, Michele. It certainly is challenging. It made me think about my ePortfolio and whether that is innovative enough to catch people's eye.
I do wonder about the success of such a resume in more traditional contexts eg I can think of some very conservative employers in the education sector - I'm not sure how that resume would be accepted there. But...I don't expect Jeff would want to work for them anyway.
Posted by: Sarah Stewart | May 27, 2008 at 05:22 PM
Hi Sarah--I think you're right that you have to consider the jobs for which you're applying and that this kind of resume would probably work best in a creative industry. At the same time, the point of a resume is to get an interview, which means you have to stand out from the crowd, so I think there's something to be learned from Jeff's approach, at least in terms of being eye-catching and creative.
Posted by: Michele Martin | May 27, 2008 at 11:17 PM
Great example and well worth sharing with our principals as we talk about how our students are changing!
Posted by: Carolyn Foote | June 01, 2008 at 10:21 AM
I agree that blogs can be great exposure for virtually anyone, yet certain careers are more blog inclined than others.
For most traditional jobs (engineer, accountant, attorney, etc.) there is no substitute for a traditional resume.
Our non-profit organization recommends people get a “real” resume to augment their blog or website.
Our non-profit organization uses a great service that also sets people up with their own blog for promotion. This is not advertised on their website, yet this is a service they do for us and I think they do it for anyone asking for it. We thought this was very original, as none of the resume services we had contracted with in the past have offered any blog assistance.
For info on getting a traditional resume and your own custom blog, go to Career Path Resume.
Please mention that you heard about them from the Community For Advancing Urban Minorities (CAUM).
Posted by: Joe Buffalino | October 01, 2009 at 09:53 PM