Micro-resume: selling yourself in 140 characters

[ultraviolet]

As far as Twitter goes, I think it's important to keep in mind that it presents a very specific context. The chances that recruiters are going to ask an E.R. nurse to "sell" themselves in 140 characters for a job are pretty slim.

The jobs that are going to be promoted in that particular way are going to be for people who don't just play in that space, but who have spent a lot of time thinking about and experimenting with how it can be used for things beyond personal communication. The original article that was linked used social media and community manager roles as the examples. Of course those people should be able to craft something attention-catching in 140 characters or less, because that's going to be part of their responsibilities if they get the job! They would also need to not be the kind of people who would think it a "dumb" idea.

Great..more power to you.

Let us know if the language/ brand /attitude wears well when you're 50+, 60+, 70+ yrs. old. You're right: One is retired by then.
I have yet to hear a flower power generation folk (I guess that's boomer or nearly boomer. I dunno.) still use "groovy" regularily/often or even at all.

I'm not sure where you're getting the bit about retirement ages from, but I never said any such thing. Since I didn't say that, and you don't know anything about me or what I think about retirement, I'm left to assume that you are projecting your own ideas about how others perceive age onto me. Thanks, but the condescension is unnecessary and I don't need anyone else's baggage to carry.

I can point to people in my own profession in the 50+ age group that use similar language. There probably aren't many in the 60+ group, but that's mostly a function of the newness of my field. Actually, I'm at a professional conference right now where far more brazen language than the usage of the word "suck" has been used in various presentations and workshops...verbally and on screen, and by people older than myself. So, at least in my professional circles, language isn't a function of age. In fact, I would say that the younger people that I've worked with have been the ones who are most careful about their language. It's only after some amount of experience and success that most of my peers seem to feel able to speak freely...or that after some number of years of fighting the battles that we fight, and seeing the ridiculousness that we see, we get fed up enough with it that we no longer care to sugarcoat anything.

I can also think of more than one former co-worker and several management sorts who did use words like "groovy" and other language that would have been categorized as slang for their generation. I worked at an extremely conservative company for several years, and my boss there happened to have long hair, an earring, had a lot of "crunchy granola" tendencies and considered himself a bohemian...all of this while getting dressed in a suit and tie every day to come to the office. None of those things stood in the way of promotions or increased responsibilities within the organization, despite the fact that they were well outside the norm for the company. Maybe I've just worked for more open-minded companies than most. *shrug* Who knows?

What I do know is that we shouldn't create sweeping judgments just because something doesn't fit into our own particular experience of the world. The world is a more interesting place than that.

[Trek420]

... we shouldn't create sweeping judgments just because something doesn't fit into our own particular experience of the world. The world is a more interesting place than that.

+1. Those in the job market right now whether unemployed, underemployed, relocating can (depending on industry, company) face subtle or not so subtle discrimination based on age. I'm using all the tricks to give my resume a digital face lift. Don't even mention the land line, nobody uses one, only the cell. The previous 2 careers; souse chef, art director? Don't directly mention them, just the skills. It's too far back. College yes ... don't say when.

In the old days (here Trek shakes her cane "you kids get off my lawn! I'm trying to figure out how to fax my resume") one never mentioned "hobbies". Now since sadly I'm more active than coworkers half my age yeah, sure; I bike, hike, do martial arts.

Posting to Twitter seems another digital hurdle to prove I'm "with it". Ooops, old jargon makes me seem "old". Gotta watch the buzz words too.

[shootingstar]

In the old days (here Trek shakes her cane "you kids get off my lawn! I'm trying to figure out how to fax my resume") one never mentioned "hobbies". Now since sadly I'm more active than coworkers half my age yeah, sure; I bike, hike, do martial arts.

Posting to Twitter seems another digital hurdle to prove I'm "with it". Ooops, old jargon makes me seem "old". Gotta watch the buzz words too.

Instead of resorting to s*ck, Trek, I have mentioned my hobbies (art, cycling, etc.) in my resume and I included some of my blogs so employers know that I can actually create stuff with social media and it is another skill set (with all that writing, marketing stuff).

yea, some employers did read my blog stuff. It becomes social lubricant in job interviews. That's why I choose not write too jargony /inflammatory blog articles ...because employer can trace me.

Did it make a difference for why I was chosen (after 18 months of unemployment)? I know the sort of skill sets the dept. wanted, but also the "fit" was probably helpful. Several other staff in the same dept., are physically active too. So skills, experience and workplace "fit" is important. So the hobby stuff sometimes is part of that "fit" to gauge the real personality of the person beyond the facade of the interview personnae that the person presents during the job interview.

The director for the division, under the umbrella of the bigger business unit where I am, is a mountain biker.

Believe me in your 40's and up, to be physically active, IS important than the s*ck /hip language.