The Internet has significantly expanded opportunities for establishing a strong professional on-line identity over the last years. Resumes are no longer limited to personalized social media pages but can be placed in a variety of online formats. The ground rule, which I employ for my own presence, is that one has to be on all major on-line platforms to reach desired audiences.
All four resumes use visualization to market their qualifications and skills. I think that in the world where information, including professional and analytical data, is channeled through infographics and social videos, visualizing your resume can considerably contribute to reaching a firm on-line presence. The first two resumes were created and posted on Prezi, which is a platform firmly connected to LinkedIn. McCaty and Troquier designed very different resumes. While the first one is a type of a comprehensive timeline of professional experience, the second one is much shorter and focuses on numbers and qualifications. It shows how flexible this tool is. I can only think of one disadvantage of this media-rich format: it is more difficult to protect your originality and the uniqueness of one’s profile provided that all the elements are easily copied and downloadable.

The next two resumes are created on YouTube. Abraham followed the format of media-rich and interactive presentation placed in a video format. And Jeska made it more personal, as she included a video recording of herself explaining her experience and skills. I am amazed by the way the reference was included as a video recording in Jeska’s video resume – it boosts the credibility of such recommendation. My only concern is that video resumes might be much less adaptable than media-rich text resumes. Hence, it would be more difficult to tailor them to a specific job opening.

I remain open-minded to the use of technological advancements in branding my professional image. Besides designing personalized professional pages on social media, I am also committed to creating more engaging media-rich resumes.

One particular tool that I am interested in is Academia.edu, which empowers users to create an interactive and constantly adaptable professional academic profile. I think that my next step will be linking a presentation resume on Prezi to my LinkedIn account and synchronizing my social media presence altogether.