Today’s jobs find job seekers because of the profiles and filters they set up long before the job search begins. For HR managers, Google searches and the ability to look at social media profiles of potential candidates short circuit the time between making a short list and making a decision.
I recently had a great discussion with Mike McClary about the rising importance of a social media profile, and the declining returns of a resume. I had written about this for a student newsletter, and it was waiting to be expanded on. Mike, a podcaster, blogger and writer is deep into this stuff. We started calling this resume 2.0 phenomenon the “Social Media Resume” or SMR. (I know it’s gonna compete with the Social Media Press Release.)
The structure of a boring, chronological resume is trapped in the old media world, swirling with ‘resume words’ rather than key words, using chronology, rather than highlights, depending on hype rather than hyperlinks. Isn’t that really odd? It’s the equivalent of sending someone a fax of a print out of he storyboard of your award-winning video, when you could easily send her the URL on YouTube.
The SMR could be enhanced to include links, and new media element. But it’s not even about the layout. Your SMR could be a dynamic thing, a collective impression based on the digital tracks you leave behind. These could be comments on a blog, trackbacks to yours, a Twitter or Jaiku comment, a paper published in college, announcements in a hometown paper about your recent appointment to a board, a lawsuit (in your favor, hopefully), being named on a top ten list, or a book review on Amazon. I just stumbled on the fact that my technology column is picked up by Amazon, and appears in edocs. Amazing!
The old media resume doesn’t allow for this adaptation. Like branding in the 1.0 world, it was all about push, looking cool, and impressive. Personal branding in the web 2.0 world is all about the pull, and about the web of influence you have built around yourself through feedback, activism, networking and participation.
The resume has not been pronounced dead, but it is on life support. The SMR will soon fill its place.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking it in my social media resume…
Hoipolloireport 
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It seems great minds DO think alike, Angelo. A while back I discussed this idea (http://prninja.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/the-social-media-resume/). It’s intriguing, but as with all this SM, the difficulty would be getting buy-in. Also, when writing a resume we want it to be easily navigated and understood– after all, we’re trying to land the job, right? The last thing we want is a resume that needs to be explained to be understood.
Still, I think there’s great potential for elements of your idea. Indeed, I include alot of my social media work (including recent posts) in my communications portfolio and prospective employers really seem to take to it.
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