This is a rhetorical question and your answer probably goes something like this. To get my dream job I was taught to go to college, get an education and work that job for 30 plus years.

Part of that process is to put your experience and education on a 8.5 x 11 inch rectangle and tell the world how great you are.  What if I told you not to forget about your resume, but to change your focus and focus on creating something that matters?  i.e. A Project

Evan Williams talk at TED centered around side projects, which is how Twitter was birthed.

The Building a Better Mousetrap Mentality

We have all heard the saying, “Build a Better Mousetrap.”  William C. Hooker invented the spring-loaded mousetrap in 1894.  Since its creation there have many different versions:  electric, live-catching, glue, inert gas and the list goes on.  What has the outcome been of these upgraded mousetraps?  Better materials??  Bragging rights??  You feel cooler about using them??

How do you build a better resume? The same way you build a better mousetrap right?  You create an online resume with links right?  You use social channels right?  As a practitioner in the personal branding it is easy to force-feed this mindset down peoples throats.  (Note:  I am not saying go drink the Kool-Aid and throw away your resume, but re-think what you are focused on.)

Game Changers and their Projects

Listed below are four people who are working on some cool personal projects who won’t need a resume to get their next gig.  Guaranteed. These projects are creating major opportunities for these individuals and I guarantee you they are not tweaking their resume to death.  They are working on projects that people care about that they have a passion for.

•    Noah Brier – Creator of BrandTags.net – Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business (2009)
•    Evan Williams -  Founder of Twitter (Enough said)
•    Gina McCauley – Founder of Blogging While Brown – Essence Magazine 25 Most Influential African- Americans (2007)
•    Noah Everett –  Founder of Twitpics – Twitter’s most popular photo sharing site.  Valued at $10 Million?

What is your side project?

But many of those job seekers have never had to conduct a real job search before. Maybe you’ve had a corporate job for 15 or 20 years, or maybe you’ve had a series of them but have always been recruited into your new role. It’s entirely possible for a person with an advanced career to have never written a resume.

So if you find yourself building your personal brand from scratch and it’s gotta get done now, here’s a 5 day guide to creating a professional presence that will get you a job.

Day 1: The necessities – Resume, cover letter, elevator speech. These are the three things that you must have in order to successfully search for a job. Truthfully, you should be using the elevator speech first and much more often, but this order – resume, then cover letter, then elevator pitch – is a common procession for putting together the information. Don’t go crazy with your resume at this stage. Find a good reference, and go from there. If you don’t have a resume, build one from scratch. If you do have one, spend the time updating and targeting it for your next role. Write a good, basic customizable cover letter. Then, develop a 30-second speech that tells people who you are and what you have to offer in a professional, compelling way. Sure it’s good to have a good finished product here, but remember that this process will help you prepare for future networking and interviews by reminding you of the great things you’ve done in the past. The process is just as important as the result.

Day 2: Develop a networking plan. The old adage is that “people buy from people,” and it’s just as true in hiring. People hire people, not resumes. So while the resume is an important tool to support your efforts, you’ll get a job much more quickly if you can get a lot of face time. On Day 2, make a list of all your options for networking, including professional associations, general networking groups, faith-based organizations, meetups, yahoo! groups, social networking and more. Figure out how much networking you can realistically do, alloting time for travel, events, and follow up with each of the people that you meet. Consider moving beyond attending into volunteering or even speaking. Develop a general outline of how you can make the most of your time through events and programs that will support your networking goals.

Day 3: Manage your online image. Google yourself. What do you see? If it’s less than flattering, or if you don’t see yourself at all, make a proactive plan to address the problem. Start a blog on a topic related to your field, create a profile on LinkedIn and other sites that are indexed by Google so that they appear in the search results. Tweet. Write articles and submit them to blogs, article sites, etc. Whatever it takes to get your name associated with your professional work online.

Day 4: Create your brand message. Do you have a tagline? A mission statement? How do you explain who you are and what you do? Work to create various ways to express your value. Have a business card that captures your message. Have a tagline. Revise your online and offline materials to answer the question, “Why should I hire you?” Have that answer ready.

Day 5: Get feedback. Ask people that you know and trust to review your materials, online and off. Make them commit to giving honest, impartial criticism. Enlist them in helping you be the best that you can be. Ask them what your resume says about you, if they find your cover letter engaging, whatever makes sense. Internalize their criticism and make it your springboard for excellence.

Of course, personal branding is not a 5-day effort. Effective personal branding requires cultivation over time. But this 5-day plan will kick start your job search efforts and help get you started on the way to success. Once you’re on your way, just keep moving. Eventually, you’ll get the superstar status that you deserve.

Kristi Daeda is a Success Coach and creator of Career Adventure, a blog which helps professionals in the pursuit of their inspiring work. To receive her free report, 51 Ordinary and Extraordinary Places to Find a Job, sign up for her free Career Kick Start newsletter.

Prove every word. Lots of resumes will claim that the candidate is “team oriented” or has “excellent communications skills.” So many that most readers don’t believe it anymore. If you want to make the claims, back them up with evidence. Write accomplishment statements that demonstrate your soft skills, like the fact that you’ve presented at industry conferences or facilitated team building events that produced business results. If you can’t prove it, you may want to skip mentioning it. Besides, they’ll judge your communications skills the minute they get you on the phone.

Put the reader on the scene. Help them taste the ripe, dripping orange or see the sunset, crimson fading into violet behind the silhouette of an Alpine forest. It’s how a fiction writer draws the reader into the scene, and you too can use detail to help the reader see, hear and experience the work you’ve done in the past. Offer enough concrete description that they can imagine themselves in your shoes.

Own your impact. If you delivered results, stand up and shout it. Words like “facilitated,” “coordinated,” “managed,” and “functioned” sound like you took a back seat while the rest of the team were at the wheel. Being part of a winning team is an accomplishment of itself. Talk about the teams results, share your part of the big win, and take credit where it’s due.

Keep it simple. What are the essentials to understanding the situation and your impact? Describe your work according to the CAR method (challenge, action, results) without getting into the minutiae. You can give additional context when you get to the interview.

Ditch the adverbs. Many adverbs dilute the power of your words. Look for any word ending in “-ly” and ask yourself if it’s necessary to maintain the meaning of the sentence. If not, use that red pen and mark it out.

Axe passive voice. An employer wants to know what you did, not what happened to you. Resume statements should start with an action verb (“delivered,” “developed,” “achieved”). Most of your work can be rephrased to show the action you took. One that is harder is “was promoted.” Good thing that’s the only time what happened to you is an accomplishment.

Pique their interest. If you can write an accomplishment that shows that you delivered impressive results, and leaves them with the question, “how did she do that?”, you just may get an interview so they can learn your solution to the problem. Think of what you can do to leave them wanting more.

Eliminate corporate speak. If it would show up on a Corporate Bingo game board, leave it off your resume.
Alright, you may not be able to avoid using “customer service” but other words, like “synergy” and “transparent” you should be able to skip. In fact, if you Keep it Simple like in rule XX, this one shouldn’t be a problem. If you find your resume sounding more like a technical manual and less like the engaging, successful person that you
are, corporate speak is often to blame.

Use white space. Ample white space–the margins and breaks around your text–makes your resume look more professional and polished, as well as easier to read. Many are tempted to try to jam in that extra sentence or two, and end up sacrificing the reader’s first impression for that content.

Use reader-friendly formatting. Bullets, indenting, bold, etc. all help the reader scan and process the information on the page. Use the tools available to you to make it easy on them, and highlight the areas of the document that you think are worthy of notice.

Kristi Daeda is a Success Coach and creator of Career Adventure, a blog which helps professionals in the pursuit of their inspiring work. To receive her free report, 51 Ordinary and Extraordinary Places to Find a Job, sign up for her free Career Kick Start newsletter.

Hajj Flemings – Visual Resume (Resume 2.0)

How do you capture the scope and depth of your life in an 8.5 x 11 white paper? One dimensional thinkers in times past (pre social networks) could be captured in a white box, but the transformation of networks to social networks, face-to-face to online conversations have changed the rules of engagement.

Traditional resumes or resume 1.0 are dead and it is not because of the Green movement.
As a personal brand you engage your community, perspective employers, customers, and future business partners through a series of brand impressions that can be leveraged through your online community. With social networks like Twitter, Linkedin, VisualCV and Slideshare and other free tools a person can more effectively communicate their personal brand and what makes them different?

Definition of Visual Resumes – Is a visual communicator of your personal brand that creatively tells your story through a brief series of images, ideas, and experiences that are in a sharable and searchable format.

Examples of Visual Resumes
o Dustin Sommer – A student from my Personal Branding Class (@Dustin Sommer)
o Saranyan Vigraham – Employee at Qualcomm (@Saranyan)

Goal of Visual Resumes: Extend the engagement of your personal brand (Employers spent 20-30 seconds viewing resumes)

Visual Resume Elements
o Brief – Recommend 15-20 pages
o Story Telling Format
o Avatar- Global ID
o Spreadable – Embed into your blog, Linkedin, and Twitter
o Searchable – The use of tags for searchability in the social network and in Google
o Images – Sources: Flickr and istock photo

Why Create a Visual Resume?
o Shows your creativity
o Optimize your elevator pitch.
o Think in soundbites
o Practice story telling
o Extends the engagement.

A Note to GRUSTLERS: (Grind-to-Hustle)
Especially if you are a GRUSTLER, the traditional resume doesn’t work. Your resume is probably loaded with experience that is not directly related with your passion and doesn’t do you justice. You need away to communicate the varying dimensions of your life.

Share a link to your visual resume.