Resumes are hard to write. And resumes are mind-numbingly boring. And most people hate doing their resume. As a result, many are starting to praise the ultimate demise of the traditional resume. This much-hated document is a necessary evil for any working person who needs a way to summarize their employment history.
But not so fast.
While the format of the resume continues to evolve and shift, the same basic premise still exists.
You still need to pull your background together in a way that makes sense to a prospective employer and provides an overview snapshot of your career.
And because the Internet has become a giant repository of content about our activities, it’s time to take control of that content as it adds up to the “bigger picture” of who you are, what you’ve been up to, and where you’ve worked.
As a result, online portfolios have grown in popularity as a way of herding all of the online content about oneself into one convenient location for potential employers.
They are looking online (4 out of 5 employers already are!).
So you might as well jump in and play the game as well by embracing social media and driving the results that they see.
And on a positive note, online portfolios also can serve as a SEO-driven and searchable page that can help push less desirable content further down in search engine results.
Pages like About.me and even creating a personalized website can act as your social media “hub” that provides connecting points to pages that feature or mention you.
The more control you take of this process now, the more positive results you’ll achieve later.
So start thinking proactively about building an online portfolio, then creating a centralized page that spider-webs out to additional pages of content.
Optimizing yourself now can pay off big dividends later in a job search and help carve out your own online content niche.
And as the world grows increasingly digital, you are actually starting to shape your own digital resume that is an aggregate and composite picture of you found on the Web.