I had 2 enlightening but very different experiences last week that got me thinking about how quickly most things change, and the need to keep up with the future.
- First, I went shopping for a new DVD player with my husband after our old one bit the dust. Since we hadn’t shopped for electronics for quite some time, we were quickly overwhelmed by the wide selection and new features. Thankfully, we found an informative salesperson who took the time to explain all the modern features, understand our needs, and match us up with a new DVD player that was just right for us. Welcome to the age of Blu-ray HD!
- Second, I had the privilege of joining in and scribing for the Global Career Brainstorming Day, which is an annual meeting held in several small groups around the country where career professionals brainstorm about current and future trends in the career industry. The information is assembled and ultimately published in the form of a whitepaper.
Indeed, the career industry is moving at the speed of technology, and those who don’t keep up, especially in today’s highly competitive market, are going to get left behind.
Updating your resume to keep pace with the future is essential, and is the first step in anyone’s job search. Your resume needs to be more than a recitation of your job responsibilities; it needs to convey positioning, accomplishments, competencies, and needs to tell a “story.” It also needs to be professionally formatted for maximum appeal.
Propelling your career into the future doesn’t end with an updated resume. Networking is as important as ever, and social networking sites are the way to go. If you’re not on Linkedin yet, or if you are but are not fully utilizing its features, this should be your next step. Not only is this a great means of professional networking, it is being used more and more for job fulfillment. Linkedin even has a new tool by which employers can directly post job openings, and members can apply using their Linkedin profiles.
Beyond these two basics there are lots of new resources that can add bells and whistles to your job search depending on your individual needs. There are online branding and reputation management tools, video Bios, video conferencing and other multi-media tools, and much more.
The future is here—are you using the latest “blu-ray HD” career tools, or are you still using rabbit ears? What cool new technology have you discovered lately?
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