Would a social media CV (resume) or biography be useful?
11 04 2007
There’s a lot of talk about How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job (thanks to Judy for the link), warnings about employers checking out your internet footprint for “digital dirt“.
So as well as cleaning up your online record, should you produce a social media curriculum vitae (resumé in the US) - and undertake some personal search engine optimisation?
A quick Google on the potential for such a “document” reveals Christopher Penn who has used the SHIFT Communications Social Media Newsroom Template to create an example of a social media resume.
Tijs has an interesting use of his site for job hunting - rewards for anyone linking to a job for which he is evenutally hired. It is an attractive site, that encompasses many of the aspects that would make a nice social media CV.
The beauty of formulating a specific social media CV is that you can include all the areas you might normally list regarding your career and personal credentials, but with links to add more depth and personality.
Could public relations practitioners and the media find such documents helpful as social media biographies for executives or speakers at conferences/events?
The Wikipedia biography project has some useful pointers on producing a social media biography. It includes a Persondata set of standardised data fields and reports that there are 7,200 such articles in the UK Wikipedia (over 100,000 in the German version).
Biographies are there for more than the most famous like Steve Jobs or Richard Branson. Which makes me wonder how many public relations people check out the internet footprint - including the Wikipedia entry - of their executives.
I did this recently for a newly appointed CEO in a company where a friend works - and found a factually correct, but less than flattering record on Wikipedia. There is recognition of the difficulties in maintaining biographies of living persons and advice on editing such records in good faith.
As well as searching by name, there is a category of “businesspeople” and another of Chief Executives, each with further subcategories listed.
I was surprised to see only 5 English chief executives in that sub-category though - Graham Allcott, Richard Greenbury, Ben Langdon, Graham Love and Alan Wood
Another interesting resource is the Wikipedia Biography Portal which draws out information in various forms. Again, such an approach could be a useful addition to any Intranet to give greater biographical information on employees - and encourage them to create and maintain their own wiki entry. It would beat the boring directory listing.
I’d love to hear of anyone who feels they have a social media CV, or who has developed either social media biographies or a dynamic Intranet resource along these lines.
I think there is a lot of potential - and can immediately see ways that I could make use of this in various projects myself.
Judy Gombita sent me your posting and I found it very interesting.
Chris Penn’s page is a good example of a simply created online presence.
He should have used a little HTML to better space the written profile under his YouTube embed (if the template allowed it).
Someone could also put in any widgets with feeds of the blogs he reads.
It’s worth noting that this could easily be done on a number of free platforms including blogger.
Also worth noting is that most people would not have access to the video resources he is using. They would use a webcam at home and the quality of the presentation would probably suffer greatly.
Many thanks Recruiting Animal - as you indicate, there is definitely potential to use free platforms to produce a social media CV. Quality of video is a good point for most people, although PR and other undergraduate students could make use of multi-media resources at University.
How very interesting indeed. You just never know who might see wise words and monitor what you are saying online.
I am toying with the idea of creating a social media CV and Chris Penn’s version is my template. I also came across another example, http://jaymoonah.com/, similar in spirit to Chris Penn’s.
I think a social media CV would be an asset for a marketing or PR or new media professional: the proof is in the pudding that the individual knows how to use the tools. Having a strategy to effectively capitalize on them, of course, is another thing.
[...] it here), and a search today turned up a post by blogger Heather Yaxley where she looks into the efficacy of a social media resume and online biographical information (e.g. [...]
Lola - thanks for your thoughts. I think your new blog is a great first step to creating your online profile and look forward to seeing your developments of a social media resume.
I just posted about the same topic and suggested a hybrid model of the traditional ‘paper’ resume with social media elements like the Social Media Press Release you mention.
here is a Link to my post: http://danielabarbosa.blogspot.com/2007/04/social-media-resume.html
One of the questions i have however- would a employer or recruiter know enough to click on the icon links?
[...] Create a social media CV (resumé ) - I posted on this in April and still believe it is something that has not been given [...]
Hi Heather!
This is very useful. I just had the idea for a social media CV myself, then wondered if anyone had a template - and your post came up straight away!
Having looked at the example templates I think it’s essential that, if you want to pursue a career in social media (which I’m contemplating) then the function must follow the form - you must make it as interactive and dynamic as possible, not just host in in online CV bank.
Also, there is the problem of the ‘universal’ CV. I don’t believe there is such a thing. Every CV I ever submitted was tailored to the job and company I applied for, so that I highlighted some areas I felt particularly appropriate in exactly the same way I would approach a brief as a copywriter.
So, if I do take this approach, I guess I’ll have a password-protected CV for every post I apply for. This ensures that prospective employers see exactly what you want them to see, and I daresay gives them a feeling of being privileged to access an area you’ve set aside especially for them.
So, let’s see what happens on that front…!
Regards
Brendan (ex-Friendly Ghost)