Advice

You Don’t Need a Resume to Get Hired

This Man Found His Job Through Twitter

For a lot of people writing their own resume is a tortuous task. It’s hard work trying to summarize who you are and what you’ve done on paper. What’s even more of a pain is that all employers have their own personal set of requirements when it comes to deciding who they’re going to call up for an interview. Over one page? Trash it. Use the wrong font? Delete. Oh, you sent a PDF? I only like Word format.

After seeing my friend David Gallant on FOX 25 for finding his current job via Twitter I came to a bizarre realization. I’m on my second full-time job out of college and I never submitted an actual resume for either. Strange, but true. Sure, knowing the right people was part of the equation. However, a lot of it had to do with building a web presence and having proof of what I’ve worked a mere Google search away.

I have a lot of friends who are recent grads and a lot of friends who are just about to graduate that are at a loss for what to do. They’ve been scouring craigslist and e-mailing resumes nonstop with very little success. In a sense, they’ve been outbound marketing themselves. In my line of work I know that outbound marketing is a total waste of resources.

So what do you do? Make yourself accessible. Make people come to you. There’s no exact science to this and for some people building a personal web page and getting heavily involved in social media is a tall order – but hey if you’re unemployed you’ve got all the time in the world, right? I can only speak from experience, and these are some things I’ve done that have helped me:

Get Connected on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a lot more than just a “Facebook for Business” as most folks tend to describe it. For whatever reason most of my friends my age are not on LinkedIn. When I ask them why they tell me that they just don’t see it ever getting them a job, which is some sort of crazy backwards logic. You can’t get a job from LinkedIn if you don’t have a profile filled out!

Having a few solid recommendations from people you’ve worked with provides social proof that you’re at least a somewhat decent hire. Being an active member in LinkedIn groups that apply to your field (or in this case the field you’d like to get into) proves that you keep active in professional discussion.

Whether or not you have a ton of connections works in your favor is up for debate. Sure it looks cool if your connected to 500+ people, but it can also look like you arbiturally just like to add any old person as a connection. Before asking to connect to someone on LinkedIn you should seriously consider the implications of being connected to them.

Twitter: Get Over Yourself and Just Start Tweeting

Wondering how you too can be like little Davy Gallant and find yourself a job through Twittersphere? First, if you’re anti-Twitter you need to get it through your head that Twitter is way more than 11 year old girls gushing about the latest Justin Bieber sightings.

If you’re going to “go public” with a Twitter account (and you should if you want people to find you), you have to pay careful attention to what you’re Tweeting. With Twitter’s character limit there’s always a little bit of leeway with having to use “txt speak”, but try to avoid it unless it’s absolutely necessary. Make sure you spell things correctly, try to avoid profanity, and more importantly avoid Tweeting under the influence.

If you have particular companies in mind that you’d like to work for it’s probably a good idea to follow them on Twitter. It’s also a good idea to find out if these companies have employees who are active in the Twittersphere and follow them as well. This will give you some insight into the company culture. In addition a company’s Twitter is frequently the first place where new job openings get advertised and their employees will usually ReTweet the listings. Not sure if they’re hiring? A simple tweet can let you know.

Start Blogging!

I’ve been blogging on and off since I was 13, but this is my first public blog. Everyone has personal interests or hobbies. Why not document them? WordPress, Blogspot, Moveable Type, SquareSpace etc. Find a platform you like and just start a blog already. If you want to you can experiment in coding the whole thing from scratch, but for most people that might be a little extreme. Regardless, it’s great practice for your writing if you’re a bit rusty and you’ll also be learning learning a new skill set. Make sure to include an about section and a way for people to contact you.

There are several other ways to get noticed by potential employers using the web, but I feel like I’ve run my fingers enough for today. In short: become an easy to reach creator of quality content and people will want you to be part of their team.

3 thoughts on “You Don’t Need a Resume to Get Hired

  1. Nice post – I’ve been trying to explain all these points to my peers, but this is a good, concise explanation of why it works. (And DG is a great example, of course)

  2. It’s true – I got my job as the Community Manager at HubSpot based on reputation and my own characteristics alone. They never asked for or saw my resume. One day I had a LinkedIn message in my inbox asking if I’d like to interview tomorrow to join their team.

    How did they know about me? I had a reputation – over 200 connections on LinkedIn, a blog, and over 500 followers on Twitter. Word spread. They heard about what I was doing at my last employer and were interested if I could bring that magic to HubSpot.

    The rest is history.

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