Look At Me!

"Content marketing is the new resume."

I read that line in a recent post by Refine Labs CEO Chris Walker and it stopped me in my tracks. It was the final thought in a post where he emphasized how the age-old way of finding and/or hiring employees should go the way of the dodo. And as I sit here on the hunt for my new career after long journeys into two others, I couldn't help but get a little inspired and, honestly, hopeful.

The thing that has been consistently difficult to really wrap my head around is the idea that before you can even have a face-to-face conversation (or in this #Covid World, a Zoom chat) with someone who has the power to EMPLOY you, you are nothing but one-to-two pages of 12-point, sans-serif font. A computer will scan that document looking for key words and phrases, weeding out anyone with skills peripherally related to the job and honing in on carbon copies of what the company had hired previously. That process certainly makes it difficult for an applicant who is somehow simultaneously over-qualified and under-qualified to have a fighting chance.

Furthermore, his post made me think of the situation that I just left behind in the world of education. High school graduates in the coming years are going to be applying to colleges with inflated Distance Learning grades (trust me, it’s true) and no standardized test scores as the likes of SAT and ACT are being told to hit the bricks. So how are these higher institutions going to be choosing the lucky few who get to be saddled with student debt for years to come? I think it’s going to come down to two main things: personal statements/essays and extracurricular activities.

Basically…

“You have good grades. Great. So does everyone else! So, first, what else do you do outside of the classroom that benefits those around you and, second, can you clearly articulate those aims?”

If this is the way it’s going to go, and I definitely believe that it is, I can’t help but wonder if the job market can follow suit in a similar fashion. I understand the overwhelming demand for employment leads to more #resumes submitted than most companies can reasonably comb their way through, and modern efficiency puts robots in place of humans to time-manage that process. I get it. Really. But I think that Chris is on to something by suggesting that the way a prospective employee is able to self-market through content creation should be just as essential to employers as past employment or what college they went to.

“But people need to know. It’s your job to communicate that to them,” Chris throws out at one point.

And he’s right. Emphasize what sets you apart. Hone in on your personal brand, make it undeniable, and push it out in front of people until they have no choice but to figure out a way to make you a part of their team. It might be wishful thinking on my part, but I believe that if you can prove yourself to be indispensable, good things WILL follow.

#LookAtMe #PersonalBranding #ContentMarketing