Your Social Resume - Matthew A. Hawkins

Over the last couple days I've been thinking a lot about work (not necessarily the work I do, but just work in general). Everyone in their life has to work, it's just a given. You live, you work, you die. I just hope my life, and your life, is much more exciting then just that.

With work comes the ever consuming, annoying, pain-staking process of developing your resume. I don't believe in resumes, at least in the traditional sense. Resumes are plastic pieces of paper where people overuse their thesaurus to come up with what may seem like trendy, eye popping ways of getting a job. Resumes can be a real waste of time.

Have you ever thought about the Social Resume you leave online? I read an article yesterday - READ IT HERE. It got me thinking about what sort of resume I have, without actually having a resume.

Think of the social networks you're involved with: Twitter? YouTube? Facebook? MySpace? (yes, it still exists) Blogging? Think about what websites your name may be on. Now imagine applying for a job and the employer does not care to see your resume, but wants to check out your info online. What would she find?

All those dumb pictures you posted of you and your friends blowing something up? Probably not a good idea at that moment before your potential boss. All those choice words you used to tell off some company who ripped you off? Probably not a good note to have left online. The gossip (not the 'good' Hollywood kind)?; the questionable behavior?; the lack of integrity?; and so forth and so on. It can all really come out online. Your social resume can say a lot about you.

Now is it fair that potential employer's can look you up online and find out so much info? Well maybe not, but at the same time you did broadcast yourself... just like YouTube told you to. Is it Google's fault it can find your name attached to a dumb article you had nothing to do with? You might feel dumb, but Google is just doing it's job, searching...

I look out in the world wide web and I wonder what people can find out about me. I look at my 'life' online and I think about the stuff I put online BEFORE I put it on. I'm also cautious of people with cameras and their facebook accounts, but at the same time I'm not a total idiot either... most of the time.

I try to live my life with integrity and honesty and I hope that shows through the people's monitors that are looking me up online.

What does your Social Resume say about you?