Hiring #TheNewBrian The Social Way

I am back in the hiring process, as a member of my team readies himself to spread his wings. Hiring makes me sanguine: the level of randomness of applicant – quality, fit, experience, resume – is extreme, implying a lack of due diligence from job seekers. I smell the scattergun fear of people trying any avenue, every avenue, to work, at anything. Resumes suck. I cannot feel the quality. So, we now ask people to present themselves, and even apply for roles, socially, in the open. If working out loud is healthy preparation for the future of work, then why … Continue reading Hiring #TheNewBrian The Social Way

Resumes: Size Does NOT Matter…Compelling Story DOES.

I have talked before about how I dislike my resume / CV. It is just so difficult to fit a person into a formula. So frustrated was I with the blah blah blah of my 2-page resume I forced it down to one-page, thinking that would help. It did not. Then, in a fit of pique, and in the fervour of a creative outburst, I turned it into a 1-metre infographic. Satisfying (and a version of which trended on SlideShare for a while). Later still, I developed the BrandBoard concept as a mechanism to tell a first-person story that is … Continue reading Resumes: Size Does NOT Matter…Compelling Story DOES.

“Yes!” Personal Branding: Planning Tools

To finish the thought, the discussion here has moved from the transliteration of a standard resume / CV to an automated visual version of the same; on to a deepened, hand-crafted version; then to a visual narrative reworking of your brand story. Now, we plan. As mentioned in the last post, moving beyond the resume as a chronological list of past experiences to make it something that lives and breathes – that is the interesting work at hand. Career Planning A couple of interesting online tools help us out here. Firstly, resum.up – a career roadmapping tool. Transparently, it place your … Continue reading “Yes!” Personal Branding: Planning Tools

“Yes!” Personal Branding: Narrative Infographics

This is where the personal branding rubber hits the road. Telling stories is as old as the hills; bizarrely, in our professional lives we are not used to telling stories about who we are, how we show up. We externalize everything. I mentioned before that our business profile becomes an out-of-body experience. At This Much We Know, visual narrative is our thang. We think holistically, we look for the greatness, your greatness, and we keep it F.R.E.S.H. So let’s consider the next iteration of visual personal branding: Automated online tools Resume infographics Narrative infographics Planning tools Narrative Infographics Infographics are … Continue reading “Yes!” Personal Branding: Narrative Infographics

“Yes!” Personal Branding: Resume Infographics

Personal branding is about trying to help others in our network to understand us – to ‘get to “Yes!”‘ Four useful ways to skin this cat are: Automated online tools Resume infographics Narrative infographics Planning tools Resume Infographics Fast Company had an excellent article on the growth in visual resumes using graphic design templates and, presumably, oversight from graphic designers. Making something look cool, and bespoke, gives the content the ‘feel’ of quality. HR commentators on the Fast Co. article made the point that resume software in large corporations cannot interrogate ‘design work’ – they are parsing words via OCR … Continue reading “Yes!” Personal Branding: Resume Infographics

“Yes!” Personal Branding: Online Tools

In the last post, I posited that we need to move beyond the traditional resume / CV. Why? Because we need some virality in our (extended) network in order to hook others’ interest. We need to think (more) visually because the world operates in an increasingly visual orientation; and people are visual thinkers (at least, 80% of us are.) Number data is processed via left-brained, analytical methods. Visual ideas, hooks are processed via right-brained, creatives means. If we can marry the language hemispheres of the brain, we can provide compelling data and stories to our audience. We can stand out … Continue reading “Yes!” Personal Branding: Online Tools