Resume, no don’t have one of those, here’s my Blog!!
By in Blogging, News on 8th January 2008
Image by moleskinart
The web has made many things obsolete, madly dashing to buy your train/cinema/bus ticket before the vendor closes, waiting in queues at stores because you pre-booked your purchase, (www.argos.com you saved my life this Xmas, and my daughter is safe in the knowledge that Santa can deliver, at very short notice the exact bike, with silver tassels and a bell.) What about searching in dusty book stores for an obscure and obsolete technical manual for a Ford Cortina (www.amazon.com, we owners of the eponymous and original vaginal load-stone love you.) Now it is the turn of the Resume to bite the dust. No longer is a typed sheet summarising all of ones achievements and career high points (which are at the very least grossly over exaggerated) adequate, make way for the Blogume. According to an article from the New York Times this week people are beginning to ’strategize’ their online persona’s to make them more attractive to potential employers (as well as potential partners etc etc.)
This personal ‘Branding’ is being increasingly seen as a way for people to make value judgments, not only for personal, but increasingly for professional reasons. Where will it all end, and what consequences does it have for us all. For example every student I know (and I come into contact with quite a few) will have to erase all of those Face-book photos from the latest night out where they are either passed out in a fountain with a traffic cone, or exposing parts of themselves to a friends phone camera. Many will have to tone down the rants, raging against the machine is fine but prospective employers might take umbrage with some of the vitriol you have spouted when your computer has gone wrong and erased all of your work for the day (especially if you have an upcoming interview with Dell or HP, and just in case I ever do, lovely computers you guys make, never had a problem!) Suddenly, if the technology exist to track all of a persons online postings and activities our darkest secrets are laid bare for all to see. It’ll never happen, I hear you cry, but the truth is it already is happening, so remeber, be nice to the big corporations, even be nice to the little corporations as they might be the big corporations one day. Furthermore, don’t let too many of your cats out of the bag online (moments of naked jell-O wrestling aside, I think I’m in the clear.) Big Brother is watrching you, and his HR deparment are reading all of your blogs.
January 9th, 2008 at 12:39 am
This scrutiny is real unfair to the employee. I don’t think anyone can stand up to said scrutiny. The problem is that once it’s on the net, it’s almost impossible to delete. I can understand checking backgrounds for criminal records, but whether a guy said something bad about a company years before, or was drunk at a party in college, shouldn’t have much bearing on his employability. Course in a perfect world, it wouldn’t, but in an imperfect one, it’s going to become more commonplace. That is, until companies realize they are missing the best people over petty things.
January 9th, 2008 at 5:48 am
I think that the web making other forms of communication obselete is something that was coming regardless. Scrutiny will always be there, hopefully employers are not going to be a$*%(#(#s about it
January 9th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
The web has made some aspects of our lives better and some worse. But big brother watching you will always be there, although the medium might change.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I have personally been putting a resume together via the web for a number of years now to great success. I have also used that as a measure of the company - if they can’t accept an electronic media based resume, is that really a high-technology type of company that I want to be working for?
As for big brother watching, it is there to some extent. Though I think a lot of that is controllable. I have multiple email addresses and almost seemingly, because of that, mutliple identies on the web. I can tell you that one alter-ego is a LOT more famous then the real me - at least based on web presence.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
yes the web has make our life of communication obselete is something that was coming regardless.