PACKAGE YOURSELF

My final comment for 2007 is that bioblogs make sense simply for no other reason than good packaging, an art that has been lost in tradtional resumes. When I first got into the resume designing and writing and editing and printing business back in the 70s, it was still a form of "packaging," mostly for VIPs and certainly management-level types. The choice of the typewriter was important (there were all IBM Executive typewriters with proportional spacing), and the paper was as well (parchment being the "bond-like" favorite). Cover letters, hand-signed in blue ink, were the outer layer of the packaging, introducing the "product" (the resume); a proper strategy called for matching envelopes and letterhead. The point was to impress first of all the decision maker's secretary so she would take the package seriously enough to forward it to her boss (rather than the trash can where the sloppy stuff went), and then to be sufficiently packaged—sophisticated, convincing, attractive, important—that the boss would want to know more. To achieve this you had to spend, to package with proof of your sincerity, implying your willingness to invest in reaching out to them and that a mutual reaching back to you would be a sensible financial transaction. It was, is, and will always be about money; thus, packaging. Whether you are selling perfume or your potential, you want to upscale your brand to make it look and smell like money, the opposite end of the spectrum from the job-obits known as chronological and functional resumes.

Packaging, with graphics, is the way to set yourself above the generic brands.

WORDBOARDING

It was about one year ago that BIOBLOGS: RESUMES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY was published, introducing a new art form to the world of resume writing/reading. During these 12 months I have crawled and scrolled my way through thousands of websites and blogs relating to employment, recruiting, writing, creativity, business, human resources, careers, college graduates, graphics, communication arts and the business of blogging. Like a suspect run through a series of waterboarding, I feel like I have been wordboarded: O.k., I give up, I confess, I started the resume revolution! I splashed the first big wave in years by calling into question the very authority of "action verbs" and "keywords". And I admit that I intended from the git-go to bring the castles of the resume writers down, to shake the very foundations of those hallowed halls of the Professional Resume Writers' Association and all the certified professional experts on "personal branding" and even those women who claim to have the "courage to reduce a resume to 1-page." I confess! I did it! I doubted their power and value, and wondered more than once whether mere words and a semantic mix of job descriptions cum braggable achievements would really cut the mustard! Why? Because I dared to imagine that the "real story," the core of the whole shebang, lay in the missing parts, the ones that were mostly connected by the glue of the resume owner's character at work; this I thought important--the role of the person's character traits within the game played by the workplace dynamics and the tribal nature of the organization--not so much the job duties and tools provided, but the jobber's perceptions, actions, and resources.

But I must have been wrong. Despite having succeeded in sparking a kindling fire for the topic of "bioblogs" (which simply did not exist in 2006 before my book), and latching onto ownership of the term "bioblogs" (trademarked; mine), I overlooked something beyond the total dedication to the traditional status quo of those who are busy selling it: The lack of initiative in the American worker and his/her fear of wandering off the beaten path. Most are happy to fill out the form and be 1:70,000,000 resumes in Monster.com's database; that's how different they think they are; that's how confident they are about their creative character. Follow, follow, follow; don't dare stand out.

It looks like in the USA just about everyone active in the job market is happy to stay on the same track as everyone else, and that view is supported broadly by those who make a $ on it, charging excessive fees for standard crap that wasn't even exciting resume-wise 30 years ago when resumes still had an affect on people reading them. While the experts talk about "personal branding" from one side of their mouths, they babble about building keyword strength from the other, as if you can be short and tall at the same time, or a leader and a follower simultaneously. Unless you are a politician, don't buy it.

That the use of graphics in a resume is such a cold fish to these folks amuses me, and I believe it is mainly because they don't know how to do it so they don't like it. Personally, anyone who can't write their own word-driven resume today probably needs to go back to school because it aint that complicated to satisfy the scanners and the HR folks, especially if all you are aiming for is a narrative of your job obits.

But if you thought long and hard about your future (with work as a part but not all of it) and tried to capture your value in words, you would find they could use a little push and punch, and that's where graphics come in. Advertisers figured this out about a million years ago. Why is it taking everyone else so long? Stop listening to the clowns who want to sell you the same thing they sold the last 500 people and demand something different for yourself. You should deserve it, and if you don't think you do, go pay somebody big $$ to crank out a sheet to feed the machines. After all, it's important to get your life summed up in bits and bytes in the database, isn't it? Isn't that what it's all about?

THE COMPLETE BIOBLOG STORY, VOL. 1

It's now complete, the web site you've all been waiting for, the COMPLETE BIOBLOG STORY VOLUME 1. Just go to bioblogging.com and you will find out everything to know about bioblogs, the resumes for the 21st century . . . and for those who wish to stand a head above the crowd.

DEB DIB'S FIT

The so-called "trend watcher of branded resumes" Deb Dib says there is a "lot of movement" towards 1-page resumes. This is but half the story because what she doesn't know is that we've already been there and 1-pagers need a lot more now than then to make an impact. She suggests leading off with a "brand statement" that portrays your "personal chemistry" and "how you would fit", or in other words, who you are.

As I said in 1975 in The Resume Writer's Handbook and its various editions, and in Bioblogs: Resumes for the 21st Century (2006): employers hire character, not skills. Thank you Deb for making a good argument for using a bioblog to paint a picture of your personal chemistry, how you would fit, and the kind of creative character at work you are promoting.

If anything implies a brand and makes a statement in the world of resumes (chronological job obits, functional job descriptive lists, combo mumbo), it's the powerful, graphic-driven, street-savvy bioblog, the one in a million document that transcends the limits of data dumped under dates.

Fit: how you work, how you relate, how you emote, how you think, how you create, how you will be in the future.

THE BIO IN A BIOBLOG

Bernadette Martin's synopsis of a good bio is that it "sets the stage." Hold that thought. She also summarizes the essence of a bio with "It's your story." [She should trademark that.] Beyond the "straight bio," which is the sort of thing you skim over on BoD reports and such things, there is the "narrative bio," wherein lies all the good and tasty bits and bytes of a person's vision, purpose and passion—those "personal touchpoints that resonate" [her words] and which (I presume) are the components that "inject personal branding" into the paragraphs (the necessary zeitgeist). It is the story of your vision, the telling of your purpose, the rendering visible of your passions that makes the whole shebang believable . . . and desirable to another, whether looking for a blind date or blindly looking for a better job. The fact of the matter of bios is that they are not just about the past and present you that may or may not be profiled in LinkedIn or Facebook or a hundred other public purviews, but the present-becoming-the-future You that brings all this baggage to the station, ticket in hand, ready to take on new challenges and to grow. It's this becoming-You that will make the vision, purpose and passion come alive. And that stage? It's the workplace where your creative character at work is the public persona that you yourself direct from backstage, behind the curtains, a socially acceptable workplace avatar (a titled Doppelganger) who has successfully separate him- or her-self from his or her chronological chains to the job obituary of traditional resumes.

All the good stuff of a bio fall naturally into the first part of a bioblog, with the graphic component carrying the load in a vacuum of competitive words. Whether you are heading upstage or downstage, your bio should be established in your own character's mind first; then dress it up in your costume of choice.

It's not just your story, of old: It's your story, of becoming. (Remember, that's what the other guy pays for, and that's why you want to create as much curiosity in your story as he/she has in his/her own story.)

Nice synopsis, Bernadette.

RESUMES ARE SO OLD HAT

Thursday's "Brand You World" teleconference was interestig to tune into, which I did for the "Resume Branding" segment with Deb Dib, Bernadette Martin and Megan Fitzgerald providing their insights and experience in the (now shadowy) field of personal branding, which can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I suppose we could all agree, however, on the basic premise that we are talking about 'personal' as equivalent to individually differentiated from the crowd (of competitors) and 'branded' as essentially our creative character at work--as what else could it be if titles, responsibilities, achievements and status are basically undistinguishable?

The terms value and impact and infused with passion and what you can do and who you are were bandied about in the circling around a descriptive essence of "personal branding," especially by Dib, who warns against common resume mistakes of becoming a generic document, nothing more than a jobs list [resume as job obituary] or merely another bland and faceless sales piece. Another word I found awkwardly tossed into the mix was "courage," especially when it was defined in terms of "having the courage to trim your resume to one page." Please forgive me, but since in 1975! I was the one in New York City who started selling high-priced, Fifth Avenue-style 1-page resumes rather than 3+ page "executive resumes" I might consider this "courage" bit a dollar short and a day late. It was radical, yes, 32 years ago.

I'll tell you what I think courage would look like in today's job market/job strategy: using a powerful bioblog to show your passion, your potential, your value, your impact. Here's a chance to do a performance breakout on a mini-scale, and to set yourself apart from the crowd: what you can do. This will show not only your creative character at work, but will voice your "brand statement" loudly, clearly and with a sense of curiosity.

One word the panel failed (not accidentally) to mention was bait, that unsophisticated kernel of truth about all resumes no matter how fancy or unfrilled. Those certified-this and certified-that folks who sell their consulting services don't want to admit to it, but that's what they are selling: bait . . . good, better, or best . . . it's still the wiggle of the worm that gets the attention of the fish.

Ms. Martin rubbed up against it with her comment that the components of a good bio are "used to set the stage" (which I construe as meaning a stage upon which your creative character can speak your part and make your case); and Ms. Fitzgerald laid it out right on the table: all you are doing is trying to prequalify for an interview (with a fish, I'd add).

All in all, these personal branding experts (Certified Personal Branding specialists, no less) were pretty vague about what the core of branding is, other than "passion" and "impact" and "value."

I wish they would have mentioned bioblogs, which are all about your potential and future value, or in other words, the personal brand of your creative character at work: the sum of all your personal parts plus work and experience and education, all aimed forward into the slippery workstreams of worklife.

And by the way, Ms. Dib, going to 1-page resumes is not the biggest thing happening in resumes today. Bioblogging is, but I don't expect you to endorse them because you are not certified to create them.

BURNING GLASS, BIOBLOGS & BIG BROTHER

If you want to see the "Big Brother" side (the Other Side) of resumes--as opposed to your side, the one you are writing and begging or screaming from--take a look at burning-glass.com's latest resume parsing technology. They can take 5,000 of you job-hunting individuals (with histories, unique stories, complex lives and families, hopes and dreams and capabilities) and churn you all out into identical, comparable (side-by-side comparisons) data banks, further categorized by title, age, location, years in positions, education, career track profiles and dozens of other ways. So if a recruiter (so-called "head hunter" although the head is the part they are missing, since they are actually looking for a "body of work") is on the prowl in the job jungle for a "seasoned yet young web ad designer" they can pull up a file of potential look-alikes based on company names, industries, titles or other factors.

On the other hand, they could just pick up the most powerful resume, a visually impressive, self-branding ad of a bioblog and check out the character behind it. In other words, a bioblog can break out of the limiting form and get the message of "I am, I can, I will" across without being systematically parsed by the high computations and low expectations of "this unit did, was, had the title of, worked in, lives at," none of which says anything about the person's creative character at work, value or potential. Parsing is all about Did and Was, not Is and Will or Can Be.

Beat the system before it beats you into the pulp of raw data machined into formless function. Resist parsing. Bioblogging is not just an art form; it's a revolution against the machination of the workplace and its creative workers. Join in if you have the guts and aren't afraid to stand out.

BRITNEY BARES ALL IN BIOBLOG

This is a title I could not resist. Of course, the absurdities are obvious: Britney needs neither a bioblog or to be bare, as there is evidently nothing naked left to her dissected and widely disseminated soul. She's like a cadaver that's seen too many exhumations, too much probing around in the old damaged tissue. And her bioblog, assuming she would be looking for a regular Mary's job (Madonna's?) other than her main gig as the Media's Main Goddess from the Netherworld, would simply be a blank photo and one of those alarming blinking question marks (? ? ? ?) that a confused, crashing computer mutely speaks. Nothing but bad news, if not worse: memory loss, corrupted hard drive, wasted time and money. Yeah, that's Britney. Her bioblog would be worse than Dorian Gray's mirror, more horrible than the Greek fate of getting what you ask for. Hell, in fact, would be a great place for her to send her bioblog, and I'd bet she'd be hired in a New York minute as a handmaiden to the Devil. Britney's bioblog would have to stress her Drive (like to destroy herself with the passion of a mother gone mad) and Passion (like to drive off a cliff into a sea of dollars). Britney: the Pride & the Passion, a bald pitbull turned virtual assassin, aiming at herself. Good shot, girl! Right on target. You bleed like everyone else! Britney: Bleeds Like You Too (TM). Britney's bioblog: now there's a thought.

DON'T SAY IT: SHOW IT.

Interview411.com lists some "terrific phrases to use on your resume" and I am amused at how standardized they are, and that they believe there is something particularly promising in them. Bioblogging would turn them upside down and inside out by using powerful images combined with deconstructed text to create idea-balloons (the wiggling bait) within which these little jabs and bits of job descriptions/functions & responsibilities would or could be ferreted out later, or elsewhere (say, in a cover letter or email or telephone talk). This sort of same old stuff (SOS) just doesn't work anymore! And to think that intelligent and successful managers or team leaders need to be directed at how to explain the myriad details of what they did everyday (day in/night out) on a resume (which is not the place) is ridiculous, like trying to tell a CFO how to crunch numbers. Below are some brief comments on these phrases and how hackneyed they are, although I must admit, they would have been dynamite 30 years ago!

1. Achieved significant results: That's nice, but isn't that the job?

2. Responsible for the achievement of: Isn't this a rework of the above syntax?

3. Managed multiple responsibilities: Is there a meaningful job above janitor that doesn't call for that?

4. Created new and better: Not sold in any stores? Call 1-800-NOW?

5. Planned and organized: Now here's a new and useful tool, as good as "managed and directed." Killer copy.

6. Increased customer satisfaction: Says who? How about an embedded video of that happy customer!

7. Created organizational efficiencies: Go ahead and say it like a man: chopped heads! Counted beans!

8. Worked effectively with: This is a phrase that is so old it's practically medieval: worked well with dungfarmer.

8. Instrumental to the success of: What, you worked with the philharmonic? Are you a director, or wing leader?

9. Developed and implemented strategies: Now we're getting into the nitty gritty, which won't fit on any resume.
10. Developed solutions: Now I'm getting curious because problems is what most work is about. I like this one.

11. Produced cost savings: Ho hum, wake me up when the power point cranks up and the spreadsheets shout.

12. Introduced quality improvements: Thin ice makes for dainty walking, so be careful dancing here.
13. Promoted teamwork: Well, hells-bells, you'd be crazy not to, aye? I mean, aint this basic?

14. Met challenging deadlines: Ever seen a looming deadline that wasn't? Why do you they call them DEADlines?

15. Managed client expectations: This could be a great anchor for the bioblog's driving image: expectations!!! It could be the entire vehicle for the deconstructed text because this is the most important of all things work-wise, the slippery eel of expectations.

16. Implemented improvements: Blahblahblah. We want to know what kind of person are you, will you be?

18. Successfully faced challenges: Ok, here's your medal or ribbon, you're a survivor: so what!

19. Demonstrated flexibility in: Stop beating around the bush and show us your character: nakedly changeable.

20. Assisted in the coordination of: I know for a fact this might mean something, but this is no way to imply it.
21. Efficiently handled: Congratulations on a job well done; did anybody notice; can you do it for us?

22. Effectively managed: See above; check for minimum requirements before installing.

23. Provided customer-focused support: There's a lot of this going around these days: is it natural for you?

All in all, most of these phrases are socially acceptable in letters, but to clutter up the bait (your bioblog) with such contrivances of "descriptions" (posed as "explanations" which do nothing to imply your future potential) are essentially high school stuff, if not managerially criminal.

I rest my case.

SOONER IF NOT LATER

While most folks are minimally happy with minimally effective traditional resumes (those chrono-functo-combo confesso-affadavits with the missing stories) there are some in the leading vanguard of highly productive, very talented, graphix-savvy Gen Y crowd that will latch onto bioblogging as revolutionary new-ware for personal branding and communicating creative character at work. As the Italian Futurists in their manifestos were wont to say: there are those who go, and those who stay. Which one are you?

FREE DESIGN! WIRELESS BIOBLOGGING! ACT NOW!

Fast Company's October issue focuses on design and cover just about everything humans drive, wear, live and work in, use and play with. Whatever the particular level that style and design touches--from the shape of our bathtub to the texture of our jackets--we are both consciously and subconsciously aware of its presence, its subtle power . . . and we like it (one reason we pay a premium for it, especially in fashionable necessities like running shoes and water bottles).

There's striking design of blenders, chairs, museums, logos, PCs and countless other "things" that surround us nite an day; and it seems that smart design can and should be applied to everything mundane, in order to promote better use and appreciation of these things, as well as to reduce them to their essential elements: design, then, being first above all a sense of the thing deconstructed to its most functional form, and then gently shaped and colored (or texturized and lit) by the designing artist/engineer to accommodate packaging and other utilitarian factors.

So what about a resume, guy and gal designers? Are these spiritless, story-less reports of Experience, Education and Other not due for a major facelift? I think so, and I believe that if we are to continue to promote our "selves" (our creative characters at work, that is) in these little framed letter of A3 boxes (which is where we keep circling back to no matter what else we do, for the purposes of SOP documentation), then we need to repackage "creativity at work" and "our personae" as design-worthy with strong, alluring images supported by structural content that is sensible and telling.

Good design strips the emotional experience down to the essential essence, and in a bioblog, it's carved away to the simple formula of IMAGE + WORD: my potential + my past. Just as one would market a new brand of a product that can help you save time, effort, energy . . . your bioblog should promote you as a valuable human/working dynamic that is always changing, constantly becoming (better, smarter, savvier, more focused).

You are wireless; you're the thing. You pick up the invisible signals and run with them, based on your Emotion (ok, let's call it your "emotional experience") as well as your WorkWorldWisdom (people learn so much more, tangentially, in the workplace about themselves and the operative habits of others than just skillsets and jobsets and mindsets).

If you really believe in the old categories and that they are still relevant (Education, Experience, Other) then stick with the staid chronological, functional, or 'combo' resume, the fake affadavit and semi-transparent confession (of failure to grapple with the forces at your job). Otherwise, go for the gusto: bioblogging.

Whereas the clumsy old resume is wired to the company's history, their electrical grid of who got what and who got nothing, and is plugged into the network of same-old/same-old job titles (functions as responsibilities, goals as less than personal driven, emotional connections severed by the dysfunctional hierarchial synapses), the more promising bioblog is like getting ready to take a long journey with no specific end in sight, because it is the transformative experience of traveling into your own unfolding future that is the important part, learning and devising and empathasizing as you go, changing directions when you have to. In other words, you aren not buying the spread between what company's say they want/need and what you know (suspect, have heard, think is probably true) what they really will be happy with a year from hire date.

Emotionally savvy biobloggers shape and design their future, starting with the paper or pixelated bioblog. It's a process that says: I know what the future me will look like; I know where I am going; I know how this works.

It's wireless because it's a mutual emotional intelligence shared between you and them that makes the connections keep from scrambling off the page, and makes sense of your story, which of course, has not yet been told because it is not yet over, and is happening in the future like everything else, which is why your bioblog should be designed to paint it rather than try to etch-a-sketch of the (your) past, which is jambled and scrambled up with everyone else's.

Caution: Bioblogging Can Be Sticky

Made To Stick, a new book by Chip & Dan Heath, analyze in considerable detail what works in getting a stranger's attention and what doesn't. Most of us are savvy enough to see through cliches and amateurism these days, having been exposed to gadzillions of product pitches from every living ad-madmen in the last 50 years, so it really takes some smart design work and crafty thinking to get through our time-thickened skins. And I find this to be one of the rationales for the creation and use of bioblogs, for bioblogging as a way of grabbing someone's attention even in the fevered pitch of day-to-day competition for attention.
The Heath bros. came up with 6 essential attributes that determine how well an ad or presentation or pitch will succeed in its mission to get a moment of your time. Below are the 6 with relevant comments re bioblogging, from my own perspective, which at the moment is about the only one on the planet since I am one of the few who know what bioblogs are and are for.

1) Simplicity - A bioblog can be reduced graphically to a single powerful element, with deconstructed text.
2) Unexpectedness - Bioblogs excel at this because they are so new that no one has seen anything like them before!
3) Concreteness - A bioblog is still the bait, just as any resume is, trying to get 2 seconds to turn it into 20 minutes.
4) Credibility - If anyone believes traditional resumes carry any credibility anymore, they need counseling.
5) Emotion - Bioblogs let a subtle if not stunning image carry the water for emotional content (character at work).
6) Story - A bioblog can tell a lot more of the story about you the brand, the creative character, than action verbs.

My point is that bioblogs bring the human element into the picture, the "missing I" that disappeared from resumes some 30 years ago and still is wandering about in the lost land of the EEO and other federal mandates that scared it off in the first place. You don't need a photo (there's already way too much info about everybody in the public purview these days for my liking) but you do need a you behind the words. It can't all be about job descriptions and action verbs.

Bioblogs promote your creative character, the person in you who puts on a workplace show, but is still a real person outside the office.

Bioblogs Are Not For Everybody

Everybody's an expert these days, on whatever they choose to claim: marketing, branding, lovesex, selfing-up, traffic peakflow . . . you name it. I'm leery of all such pronouncements of deep knowledge about anything (especially my own) and smell a rat in the silo; it looks to me that there's a lot of winking and secret signalling going on, mutual backscratching, you know, "I'll help you pad your resume if you help me embellish mine . . . what do the regular folks know anyway, the peanut gallery online clickers?"

So I'm saying here that I do not claim to be an expert on anything other than myself, and that doesn't run at 100% but on a few circumspect occasions now and then, on a hit-and-miss basis mostly.

I know a lot about resumes, however, because they simply have not changed much in relation to other things since I first got involved writing them in the 70s. And I know as much as I want and need to know about business practices as played out in the panorama of America's polyglot cultural challenges, having worked at many levels from an oil field roustabout hanging out with peyote-chewing Mexicans to presenting multi-million-dollar budgets and quarterly performance reports to the CFO in the boardroom.

What I really know, though, is bioblogs. Because I invented/created/originated/first imagined them, and this was after a decade of thinking about the idea. And I was surprised that no one, not even monster.com, had thought of the idea. So I trademarked the term "bioblogs" and wrote the book and produced 100 examples of how they could look. That makes me 100 bioblogs ahead of anyone who starts the race.

But I'm not an expert on bioblogs. An authority, yes; but not an expert. Because I am trying to light the fire beneath the haystack, to create a revolution against traditional resumes and their flatness, their hollowness, their wordiness. I want really valuable people, really talented and ambitious and desirable candidates, to do something more fruitful in their job hopping/searching than promote their rare creative characters at work with mundane "job resumes." I want them to create their own exciting, visually appealing bioblogs. And I want very much to see them.

I want to see them because bioblogging is a new art form, and it's not very often that a new art form is created. It is a valid one too, and one that will allow individuals to reflect their personal styles in their compelling, personal stories, while simultaneously serving the routine function of traditional resumes: to be the bait that gets the fish.

And after I have seen a 100 bioblogs created by a 100 different people, and assess their approaches and successes or failures, I will then be on the road to being an expert. Like everything in life, one is always in the process of becoming, not just being, and so I will become an expert by watching the art form grow and evolve. But right now, I just want to see the walls come down around the HR offices and personnel screeners' computers. (I want bioblogs to jam up the works, crash the system: "Alarm! Individual detected! No keywords, just character, what what what to do?"

I expect no assistance, help, cooperation, sympathy or interest from the SOP-bound folks in the HR circles because they have a vested interest in the status quo: resumes designed to disgorge their organic matter into the vortex of recycled job descriptions mixed with swirls of academia make it easy for the honchos who screen applicants to ignore issues of creative character. Hell, most of them don't even care if the person is a man or woman, something that I find difficult to carve away from the general sense of a person. I mean, isn't that just a natural starting point? Didn't we get into that in caveman days, trying to figure out if a stranger was "like me" or "not like me," and therefor possibly "bad for me"?

The gadzillions of neutered resumes purporting to represent living characters do not do much of a job of it with their "action verbs" (and missing owners) and "keywords" (action verbs revisited). But the HR people are happy with their stacks and piles, their rote world of the seven types, and they will fight off bioblogs like some sort of virus attacking honey bees.

If we're lucky, they will eventually accede to to fact that the "best performers" should be allowed to use bioblogs, but "they are not for everybody."

I never said they were.

Bioblogging from your Blog

Here's what I think is the most direct and powerful way to get your bioblog across the table: put it on your blog as a pdf that can be opened and/or saved on the reader's desktop. Remember, it's graphics that generates the interest, not a photo of you, which could lead to negative reactions and possible legal ramifications. Stick with the representational image that you have chosen to signify your creative character at work. Of course, if you really want to get your mugshot into the scene (and most websites or blogs seem to prefer it), make it part of the site itself, the background, so that your focused bioblog is more "open" and "objective" in its presentation. You could even include a videolog that points to aspects of your character, experience, interests, education or world-view as encapsulated by your bioblog, posing as sort of an Instructor of Self. Have fun with it and don't be afraid to poke holes in your precious ego: interviewers love applicants with a sense of reality and a level-headed sense of humor. And since we are talking about sense, commonsense as well . . . a highly desirable trait, especially on high-pressured, tight-deadlined teamwork.

Blogs are cheap and easy tools for instant access to you as a viable brand for sale. You are the domain of your future, and there's good reason to hawk your talents: because if you don't, no one will. (Donald Trump didn't get where he is by sitting in the back of the room and wondering if he was good enough.)

By subdividing your blog's main domain (Me) into subdomains (my work ethic, my workplace know-how, my professional observations of what's needed), you can parcel out your brand's values in separate but parallel, supporting bioblogs: Me the Manager, Me the Problem Solver, Me the Social Coordinator, Me the Long-term Thinker, Me the "Think Fast" Person, and so on. Each of these subdomains can describe specific experiences at particular workplaces (the real details, for a change) that culminated in your succeeding despite the circumstances. Instead of making claims--"increased national sales 38% in 3 quarters"--try explaining what was going on and how you perceived the situation, what you did, how you handled obstacles, what kind of cooperation you go, etc. Tell the story interestingly enough and they will read it.

Given that a blog is essentially a place where a person claims to be an expert on his or her own thinking, show them that you are just that, someone who knows the ropes of how you act and react. It's one less variable for them to plug into the hole that you will fill, should you be hired.

Reading & Writing for Rupert

The world is getting smaller and Rupert Murdoch is getting bigger. I can't escape his encircling grasp. To start off, I am an author; Harper & Row was my original publisher 30+ years ago, and they merged into HarperCollins, which Murdoch owns. I am in Murdoch's global stable, one of umpteen thousands of word-hackers (2 books, 4 editions). Before I threw my TV out on the street and got fed up with the onslaught of the juvenile, liberal "anything goes" mentality driving most marketers, I used to like to watch news shows on Fox News. (Murdoch's) My satellite provide was DirectTV. (Murdoch's) I escaped both when I got rid of the TV (which I do not regret one iota). I get my daily dose of hard/soft news from talk radio shows and the web and by reading every evening The Wall Street Journal. And you know, of course, that Murdoch just bought the WSJ.

As this has been happening, a large contingent of mourning doves has been gathering in the trees and on the fences of my goat field. I mean a lot of them, starting with a few and at last count, some 33 of them lined up near my garden. Hitchcockian. I don't necessarily think that they are related to this Murdoch business, but who the heck knows? I wonder if he's planning on going into the seed or goat milk business?

ANITA BRUZZESE'S INTERVIEW WITH ME

When I was recently interviewed by USA Today’s Anita Bruzzese (45things.com), I found her so interesting to talk to and had so many questions that I got off script and forgot to mention some observations about today’s resume. I summed it up by telling her that trying to make one of today’s traditional resumes exciting is like trying to breathe life into a sock puppet.
Here are the 3 main problems that make resumes flat as a flounder:
1) Empty Language
The language utilized in 99% of resumes has basically been drained; its empty of force even though it retains limited context, but for all practical purposes, its about as revealing of the author as a crude poem. English has only so many action verbs to offer for use in describing work and responsibilities. The fact is, everybody is using the same words and not in that different a structure. (Just ask someone who reads them.) It all sounds and looks the same: unappealing, noncreative, uninformative.

2) The Hiding “I”
The resume writer is a tightrope walker, trying to adjust to the balance and tension of the fine line between “not saying enough and saying too much.” It is a tension of the “I” trying to be recognized through the reading of a document whose historical nature has always focused on the so-called ‘objective’ past. That’s the wrong essence to be built around, the past, and they focus entirely on describing events that frequently leave out the most important details, rather than explaining the story of how your character at work played a role in the workplace drama. Because work is not just about functions, but about people and their personalities, viz, character, that should become part of the story, but in resumes, its missing with the “I” of I did, I was, I (fill in with the action verb of your choice). And even if you are still working and describing your job responsibilities in the present tense, we all know that if you are looking for a new job, you are mentally “gone” from your present job, you’re ready to move on. You’re already looking at your job from the POV of the future looking back.

3) Lousy Bait, No Story
I just don’t think resumes work anymore to tell the story of you, the unique character who shows up at work along with the crowd. We get lost in the crowd so easily. I mean, if you are just a regular person who isn’t interested in anything more than the minimum requirements, regular resumes still do the grunt work of getting the bare facts across the table, but that's all. I defy you to find a typical resume that tells an interesting story or gives you a clear impression of what kind of person stands behind all the stuff that is said to have been done here and there.

For high performers and achievers with a larger drive of motivation and ambition, you need something special, something different that makes you stand out, and that's a stunning and exceptional bioblog, a powerful expression of you as a personal, stand-alone brand.

ARE YOU AFRAID OF YOU?

If you are afraid to bioblog you might be fearful of revealing your creative character. You need to get over the concerns that somehow you will "tell too much" by being different (by bioblogging rather than resume-ing). You are different, aren't you? Isn't that one of your main selling points? Isn't that what employers are looking for? They know that they are not going to replace one exiting employee with an exact replica (nor would they want to, usually) and are fully prepared to deal with the verisimilitude of you as presented in your bioblog. It's what they do, melding unique individuals and their creative characters into a common drive and goal. You actually help them by demonstrating (with your bioblog) up front that you know what you're offering, that you are clear about what they are getting, and that you need to know what the parallel truth is: What will you be getting. By putting your public persona's creative capabilities on the front burner in the job-related communications, you do a service for them and simultaneously give yourself an edge; you strengthen your negotiating stance by focusing the issues on what they have to offer, not just what your brand's make-up is comprised of (potential based on know-how combined with experience).

In the rough tumble of the world of work, there simply is no room for fear, for being afraid of yourself. The belief that you can do a tough job and take on a difficult challenge for the simple rewards of succeeding is essential to your public persona's believability factor; it's a no-brainer that if they sense that you doubt yourself, they will too, as playing it safe is generally more predicatable and less costly than taking a long-shot risk. This doesn't mean that you are limited to your experience or that you are totally subject to the glaring omissions in your background (no degree, short term chronologies, inconsistent story), but it means that you must be able to make sense of your unique background and gel it all into a worthy story that leads to a tangible, realistic, and interesting goal. If you can tell your story well, you have conquered fear. Creating a believable bioblog is a good step and valuable exercise in this process.

THE 3 WORST THINGS ABOUT MOST RESUMES

When I was recently interview by USA Today’s Anita Bruzzese (45things.com), I found her so interesting to talk to and had so many questions that I got off script and forgot to mention some observations about today’s resume. I summed it up by telling her that trying to make one of today’s traditional resumes exciting is like trying to breathe life into a sock puppet.
Here are the 3 main problems that make resumes flat as a flounder:
1) Empty Language
The language utilized in 99% of resumes has basically been drained; its empty of force even though it retains limited context, but for all practical purposes, its about as revealing of the author as a crude poem. English has only so many action verbs to offer for use in describing work and responsibilities. The fact is, everybody is using the same words and not in that different a structure. (Just ask someone who reads them.) It all sounds and looks the same: unappealing, noncreative, uninformative.

2) The Hiding “I”
The resume writer is a tightrope walker, trying to adjust to the balance and tension of the fine line between “not saying enough and saying too much.” It is a tension of the “I” trying to be recognized through the reading of a document whose historical nature has always focused on the so-called ‘objective’ past. That’s the wrong essence to be built around, the past, and they focus entirely on describing events that frequently leave out the most important details, rather than explaining the story of how your character at work played a role in the workplace drama. Because work is not just about functions, but about people and their personalities, viz, character, that should become part of the story, but in resumes, its missing with the “I” of I did, I was, I (fill in with the action verb of your choice). And even if you are still working and describing your job responsibilities in the present tense, we all know that if you are looking for a new job, you are mentally “gone” from your present job, you’re ready to move on. You’re already looking at your job from the POV of the future looking back.

3) Lousy Bait, No Story
I just don’t think resumes work anymore to tell the story of you, the unique character who shows up at work along with the crowd. We get lost in the crowd so easily. I mean, if you are just a regular person who isn’t interested in anything more than the minimum requirements, regular resumes still do the grunt work of getting the bare facts across the table, but that's all. I defy you to find a typical resume that tells an interesting story or gives you a clear impression of what kind of person stands behind all the stuff that is said to have been done here and there.

For high performers and achievers with a larger drive of motivation and ambition, you need something special, something different that makes you stand out, and that's a stunning and exceptional bioblog, a powerful expression of you as a personal, stand-alone brand.

TOTAL ENGAGEMENT

The July 30th issue of Business Week's MediaCentric article by Jon Fine describes how the newly revamped Nielsen SoundScan system tallies up sales data by measuring "engagement" rather than "page views" of the old days. What Nielsen is focusing on is how long a viewer views a page, not that the page is being viewed, and it this "engagement" that is the critical factor in compiling the algorithm of ratings. That makes sense in the Malcolm Gladwell sense of "2 seconds" of attention most people or issues get a first glance--particularly resumes. This initial "first glance engagement" is about a nanosecond originally, with the viewer's "mental instincts" and "marketing saturated POV" determining whether to continue, to dig deeper, to allow another second or so.

In bioblogging, this is the given: You aint got much time. Seducing your reader-viewer is not something you have the luxury of time for because they are going to move on to the rest of the "me-docs" wanting some little bit of attention. And since biobloggers know this and make it the platform for developing the strong, attention-grabbing graphic that will be responsible for the first nibble (of the bait), they also know that the image must be woven easily, quickly, seamlessly into the textual content in a complimentary and inviting fashion. Deconstructing text to basic messaging format (dates, titles, the basics) makes it all digestible quickly.

Another given, in all resumes regardless of form, is that more information is always available to the reader if it is requested, so there is never any rationale for trying to plug in everything onto the page to tell the whole story. (If you took 10 pages you probably wouldn't be able to tell the "whole" story of bosses and their personalities, ego trips, crazy corporate policies, outdated systems, overloaded organizations, unrealistic expectations and lousy teamwork.)

Engagement: first glance, second second, point made, bait taken.

Engagement: process of active viewing requiring creative thinking and an open mind.

Engagement: 2-sided process where writer stimulates reader in a provocative manner, for a clear reason.

Engagement: first step of wondering, "what is this?" and "what does this mean?"

LIKEABILITY VS JOB SKILLS: WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT?

"Employers hire character traits, not just skills." I quote myself, as I have been saying this for 40 years. (Check out the 1st edition of The Resume Writer's Handbook, published in 1978, if you don't believe me. It was true then and is even more so now, if that's possible.)

My own research that led me to this conclusion was face-to-face interviews over decades with some 5-6,000 workers in my many resume writing offices across the fruited plains; and because many (if not most) of these clients were typically responsible in their various jobs for seeking, screening, interviewing and/or hiring other workers, I became well-versed on what their priorities were. Above all, they sought new hires who exhibited the "character at work" that would fit in best with the company's public culture and personal teamwork structures: e.g., if they needed an aggressive team player to help lead a new branding program, they were not looking for a quiet, studious type of person--they wanted an extrovert, an outgoing Type A to be the point person in the marketplace. Even if they could get all the skills plus more for half the price in another candidate who lacked the personality for the team, they would not be interested, as one ill-fitting team member can cause the whole team to steer wrecklessly and off the road.

Now here's proof in objective research. Professors Tiziana Casciaro of the Harvard Business School and Miguel Sousa Lobo of Duke University have determined from their studies that "most people prefer to work with a 'likeable fool' rather than a 'competent jerk' and (here's the clincher) in situations where people can choose or influence whom they work with, they are more likely to pick someone who is likeable, even if they are not the most competent, rather than work with someone who may be extremely competent but is difficult to get along with.

It's really a matter of meshing characters at work. The authors of "Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools, and the Formation of Social Networks" (Harvard Business Review) point out as well that the two main criteria guiding people in their formation of highly important social networks are likeability and competence at the job. It seems that people (and that includes the people who are "the employers", the deciders, who make the hires) are more willing to accept or try to make up for deficiencies in the skills of people they can work well with than they are to deal with the unpleasant personality of a higher skilled person who makes worklife difficult.

This just demonstrates what we all already know, and it doesn't apply simply to managers and leaders.

The relative points here are:
1) bioblogs give a candidate an opportunity in advance to present that pleasant, well-fitting character they need
2) no resume of any form can really tell the whole story (the part that includes the jerks and their influences)
3) bioblogs can paint a strong picture of likeability in the light of flexibility/adaptability, rising to challenges, etc.
4) pleasant workers (even if less fully skilled than desired) are fun to be with -- something a bioblog can highlight
5) likeability can be deconstructed for the particular job, as it is not the same for all vocations and levels
6) unless your work is very technical, it is likely that the specific skills you have will need revising/updating elsewhere
7) skills alone have never been the issue at the top levels, where personalities drive companies from the corner office
8) skills cannot be surgically removed from the owner's character at work (it's not what you have but how you use it)
9) personality at work is creative character under duress: how well do you operate in the social theatre of work?

Like I've said for 40 years: they hire people, not skills. Wouldn't you?