This week I’ve been attending career workshops—about using social media, writing resumés, that sort of thing. And it’s all about personal branding. What message are you trying to convey? Keep that brand consistent across social media. Use social media to research jobs and network, interact and ask questions, make updates and spread the word that you’re looking for work, and stay current and access job postings. On your resumé, use accomplishment statements with action words that demonstrate what you successfully implemented in past work situations.
Oy. So I’m getting online and starting to use some social media—and wow. I can’t believe the time people seem to have put into their online personas. First off, where’d they get that time? As an introvert, I thought I was in my head a lot, but compared to everyone else on the planet, I’m as real (read: old school) as it gets. I’m as tactile, five-sensory, keeping-it-real, settin’-out-the-garbage, beer-chuggin’, takin’-care-o’-business, down-to-earth as it gets. There’s this whole other world that I don’t live in that everyone else apparently does, and it’s in this mystical land where the powers that be are gonna judge my ability to hold down a paying gig.
I gotta take a nap, shop for food, prepare a meal, do laundry, clean and de-clutter, and read a book that’s been printed on paper and then glued together.
The online world doesn’t seem so real to me right now, but that’s probably going to change real soon. (And oh, yeah, make sure you keep it gen-u-wine.)