Social Media Resume Assignment

The semester is quickly coming to an end, which means that it is time to start working on your last project - the social media resume! The point of the social media resume is to demonstrate your social media skills to prospective employers in a creative manner. It is also designed to tie together all the different technologies we have explored in this class (such as blogs, podcasts, webvideo & social bookmarks).

For this assignment you will create a social media resume which will “announce” your qualifications, goals, job expectations and anything else you deem necessary. Since the social media resume will be published on your blog (and therefore available online), please don’t include any personal information such as phone number, address, DOB, GPA, etc. If you want to list your email, spell out the @, so spam engines won't be able to pick it up (i.e. userid at stedwards dot edu).

Your social media resume should include the podcast and video you created as part of your class assignments. The finished resume should be published to your blog. Please proofread your resume carefully. There's nothing worse than a resume full of typos.

Required elements:
1. Contact info - again, don’t give out personal info here. Listing your blog, or other online ID will be enough
2. A brief introductory paragraph
3. Your qualifications, desired position (the typical resume items)
4. Multimedia files

• Photo (optional): Please note that you are not required to add one. Only add it if you are comfortable having your picture on the Internet
  
• Podcast: Embed or link to the podcast you created earlier this semester (and any additional ones if applicable). If you will be linking to it, add a podcasting icon to your link.
  
• Video: Embed or link to the webvideo you created earlier this year (and any additional ones if applicable). If you will be linking to it, add a video icon to your link.
  
• Graphics (optional): Consider this an online portfolio. If you have created a print ad for an advertising class for instance, add it to show off your skills.
  

5. Links (optional) – if you have authored other pages on the web, or have other web presences (LinkedIn, Facebook), link to them here.
6. RSS, social bookmarking, & Technorati buttons – add these buttons on the bottom of your resume.

Helpful Resources:

You can create your social media resume in a number of ways:

1. Create it as a regular blog post and edit/format it within your blog editor
2. Use PRXBuilder to format and publish it to your blog
3. Use VisualCV, a free online resume creation tool, and link to it from your blog
4. Create your resume using GooglePages. It will create a page on "http://yoursitename.googlepages.com", which you can link to from your blog

Grading Criteria:

• Contains all the required elements listed above
• Is well written and free of grammatical or spelling mistakes
• Is well formated
• Contains relevant/substantive information

New resource for creating your social media resume

This post might be a bit early considering that our social media resume assignment isn't due until the end of the semester, but I figured that those of you currently looking for internships or jobs might be interested in this visual resume service I just stumbled upon.

VisualCV is a resume building tool that allows you "to build and manage an online career portfolio that comes alive with informational keyword pop-ups, video, pictures, and social networking". The goal of this free service is to bring "both the CV and the resume into the modern Web 2.0 world by transforming the way in which resume data is presented, accessed and shared".

Last semester we used PRXBuilder to build a resume that would do just that. This semester we may just give VisualCV a try. I haven't tested it yet, but I think it looks promising. Let me know if you try it out before our social media resume assignment is due.

On a similar note: One of you recently asked me how to describe your social media skills on a resume. The point is that you want to display them instead of describing them. What you want to do, is show off your blogging and podcasting skills rather than listing them in the form of bullet points. I think this cartoon illustrates this idea superbly:


Credit: James Barbour

Social Media Resume for Students entering the PR or Advertising Industry

In the newest Forward podcast, Bryan Person discusses the idea of a social media resume for PR and advertising students (11:36 minutes into the podcast). Bryan also elaborates on the need for a social media resume on his own blog and provides a couple of examples.

These examples are very close to what I would like you to do for your upcoming SMNR assignment in which you are supposed to "announce” your qualifications, career goals and job expectations in form of a SMNR. The point of this assignment is to demonstrate your social media skills to prospective employers in a creative manner and to tie together all the different technologies we have explored in this class (such as blogs, podcasts, web video, social bookmarks, etc.). As you explore the examples posted by Bryan, pretend that you are a potential employer looking at these resumes. Which type of resume would make a stronger case for a candidate's social media skills? A traditional resume, describing the skills, or a multimedia resume displaying them? Loaded question, I know.