Interactive Career Strategies

Creating your own, personal, Web site is less a technical challenge than a good business decision. Management guru Tom Peters talks of professionals being responsible for “The Brand Called You… Future-thinker Bill Bridges writes of “The DE-Jobbing of America”… We all see strong evidence of the ever increasing outsourcing of the corporate world and the “WEB-O-Lution” represented by the spiraling growth of Internet access and usage.

If our future is one of a global economy comprised of nations full of “free-agent workers”, consultants and the unending stream of entrepreneurial-spirited labor force members… then one way of leveraging one’s value will be the creation of one’s personal 24 X 7 storefront to bring our services to the market.… now, Jerry Yang, cofounder of YAHOO, contends that “…personal publishing represents the next big paradigm shift on the Web.”

However, shifting entrenched paradigms of personal promotion is no easy matter. As we have seen so often in our recent past, new technology and the ensuing new products and services are viewed merely as different from what has come before… simply because they tend to be perceived as unusual.

In fact, personal Web sites should be viewed as the natural “Web-o-lution” of journals, old photo albums, diaries and the age old “holiday letters” for family and friends. The true difference in this new technology is the audience, now GLOBAL and 24 X 7!

We now live in a new and different world where there is constant pressure to change… where change becomes the institutional process… where job descriptions and skill sets change faster than the weather in Texas… The individual professional must keep up in a very dynamic way, not simply the old static change model represented by academia and the psychological community. The perfect media for such dynamic “brand positioning” and self-promotion is the Web and your own, personalized site on it…

WhatIDo.com

In fact, your personal Web site, a Professional Resume Online (P.R.O.) can “wear several hats”. One such function is to reflect the dynamic process of your “trends analysis” relative to targeted companies needs. Another would then be your self-assessment relative to your research.

Consider a page of alternative SUMMARY paragraphs, each supporting a positioning of choice. This would be complemented by a page FULL of your accomplishments over the years.

You, of course, would want an EDUCATION and training page. In such configuration, your Web site could become a highly interactive clearing house. Now you can build your unique resume presentations to reflect a good fit with an employer’s needs. Each of these assessment-oriented pages would be kept current with your actual career…a dynamic “document in process”.

As an example of an interactive, resume building site, see

http://members.aol.com/ResumeDraft/components.html

A second function of your Site would be to reflect your current RESEARCH through both hyperlinks and narrative summations and analytical commentary.

As an example of a current research site, see

A third functional area of your Site would be a NETWORK and communications page… the online "springboard" into your E-Community. A typical component could be your own bulletin board to your functional and industrial world. This could be a “by invitation only” page that would be a reasonable representation of your current network. It would be kept two-way in nature by including a “request for information” form… or a direct hyperlink to your e-mail address.

As an example, see how this sample Professional Resume Online (P.R.O.) hyperlinks to a bulletin board site:

“The center of THIS universe” is self awareness. Your whole P.R.O. site should reflect the total you. It can be a uniquely skillful blending of your personal and professional profiles. The key, here, as is the case with your resume, is that your Web site should FIT you and create the best impression of your capabilities and potential.

There used to be a clear distinction between the personal and professional components of “YOU.” Those boundaries become blurred in the light of self-employment, entrepreneurism and other lifestyle issues. A Web site actually takes on your personality and reflects your values and interests (all “soft measures” of who you are) in its choice of format, layout, graphic selection and links to other sites.

In the grand scheme of personal marketing strategy, your Web site is another piece of an intricate puzzle. As in your resume, letters, phone work and personal networking, YOUR Web site should be viewed as a way of generating productive dialog between you and a potential employer—or other interested party. It should contain the basic structures that create “the FIT” between you and their needs.

Make your site uniquely you (redundancy intended). Templates of the various editors and software available to you should be considered only as a starting point in the development of YOUR site.

FIT HAPPENS… both between you and potential employers AND between your message and how it’s received. If your site is not an “authentic” reflection of YOU, it will become apparent quite easily and quickly. As more and more Web sites are created, the “literacy rate” within this media increases. Site visitors quickly turn off to sites that are excessively manipulative in the language or presentation.

Does your P.R.O. site reflect what matters to you…or merely what you think should matter to you? Personal and professional components are very strongly linked. If something matters to you, it should find its way onto your conversation-starting site.

“Web Careering” Through Site Development

The development of your site should be a consistent and constant process. Just like a traditional resume is merely a static reflection of what you’ve done, a static Web site is merely a snapshot of you looking backward into your past. More appropriate to the medium, YOUR SITE can be a very dynamic one that clearly reflects your current positioning and future objectives. Make it easy for viewers to see what’s changing.

While much of who you are is this dynamic “work in progress”, some things don’t change… and should be displayed strongly so. Philosophically and biologically it could be argued that if you are not growing (and changing), you are either dead or dying.

Don’t let your site “die” in the eyes of its viewers or yourself and your development.

Choose graphical material wisely. Graphics can both attract a viewer to AND detract from your P.R.O. site’s content. Choose your graphics carefully, with two factors in mind: Do they FIT with your intent and philosophy…AND…technically speaking, will they download efficiently?

Any site should be concerned with user friendliness considerations. YOUR SITE should be attractive and useful in order to appeal to its viewer.

As an example of an attractive, user friendly site, see

http://members.aol.com/ResumeDraft/sample1.html

Career Strategies...

WhatIDo.com

As an example of a current research site, see

“Web Careering” Through Site Development