Resume | Read Write Collect

Replied to Your Blog Should Have an About Page by

What to put on that /about page? Just your professional history, making it more like a boring résumé, hoping the blog will help you land a job? Your hobbies and coordinates? Your martial status? A complete summary of the technical tools wielded and endless prowess showcased when building your custom blog engine? A list of social media links where people can also find you? How many years you’ve been uploading words onto a server? A selection of the most popular articles you’ve written so far? A lovely photo of you in a suit presenting something at an important conference?

Your Blog Should Have an About Page by Wouter Groeneveld

Wouter, I have long wondered what should go in my ‘about’ page and how to approach the challenge of telling my story. Sometimes I wonder if I have a story to tell? If so, is it that unique or even important? Groeneveld talks about selling your brand, does everyone have a ‘brand’? I have explored different ways of telling before. This has included Amy Burvall’s #3ofMe project, unofficial CV, my connected story, the story of my domain and Story of Connection. I feel I have always grappled with the balance between my identity associated with work, family, professional and personal interests.
I have been many things in my life. An English teacher. An ICT specialist. An EdTech coach. A primary teacher. An administrator. A student. A functional consultant. A functional specialist. This makes me many things to many people, let alone to myself. I fear that this means that if people come to my blog that they are disappointed as they will always meet with a different identity to the one they expected as it is not a space that can necessarily be everything to everyone. Maybe Adrian Camm’s idea of a ‘user manual‘ is useful?

Liked Résumé History: A Sudden Rise to Modern Irrelevance (Tedium: The Dull Side of the Internet.)

The résumé, a document that largely gained prominence in the past half-century, was once a key part of getting a job. Soon, it might just disappear entirely.

Liked 27 Words You Should Never Use to Describe Yourself (Inc.com)

Some are incredibly overused. Others just make you sound full of yourself. Either way, you lose.

Replied to The Challenge Of Work (email.mg2.substack.com)

ATS systems filter applications based on keywords, skills, former employers, years of experience, schools …. you name it. If you really need ‘3 years of full stack development’ for that job you are looking to fill – then the system weeds out any resume that doesn’t reveal that the candidate has a minimum of three years doing just that.

So, the winning candidate needs to be just as skilled at tuning their resume, cover letters and conversations to maximize the chance that the AI picks them … as they are at actually doing the job they are applying to fill!

John, this was an interesting read, especially in light of Malcolm Gladwell’s call to remove the name of the university from applications in a recent podcast.

From experience, when people bypass the AI or properly filtering the various applications, they fall back on who they know, which sometimes promotes certain types over others.

There has to be a better way, just not sure what it is.

Replied to

The most important qualities of any educator are not adequately captured on a resume. It is hard to quantify passion, energy, dedication, patience, perseverance, and love… but in the classroom… those qualities make all the difference in the world.

— Danny Steele (@SteeleThoughts) June 13, 2019

Danny Steele, your discussion of what matters and what is often recorded reminds me of #altcv and the stories that often go untold.