Lindsay Olson

A Real Life PR Job Seeker Success Story

The economy has forced many people to get more creative to land a new position. Kevin Brown, now an Account Manager at Stage Two Consulting, shared with me a presentation he used that helped him transition from political consulting to technology public relations.

He developed a Prezi presentation to show off his talents. Without an existing relationship with a potential employer, making the switch from political consulting to tech PR is challenging, even in a strong job market. I love how Kevin showed off his sense of humor while relating his experience and even addressing some potential objections in this presentation.

Some good ideas here. And he’s a success story because he actually got the job!

What kind of creative examples have you seen or used to get a new job?

Interesting links: November 20-26

Interesting links for the long weekend reading... Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy!

Career

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• 25 Most Creative Designer resumes you'll see this year - JobMob
• The You Show - Seth Godin
• Downsized? Fired? Here are the new rules of finding a job - Web Ink Now
• 10 of the toughest interview questions ever - Anita Bruzzese
• 10 Jobs That Make You Realize Your Job Isn't That Bad - Brazen Careerist
• Job Seekers Bend Ears of Advisers, Recruiters - Wall Street Journal

Business

• 10 ways to jumpstart your creativity - Dumb Little Man
• Everything I need to know about blogging I learned in high school - Copyblogger
  
• You will be misunderstood - Seth Godin
• How to Get What You Want - Gwen Bell
• Productive Magazine - free download
• 15 Tips for Writing Effective Email - ThinkSimpleNow.com

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Interesting Links: Week of October 20, 2008

Interesting links for the week. Enjoy!

Marketing and PR

Seth Godin: Be careful who you work for

The Future Buzz: 65 bite-sized web marketing tips

CopyBlogger: How to write with a distinctive voice

Lateral Action: The dark side of creativity - Burnout

Career

CareerRealism: Can you handle the truth - 10 tips about career (that no one ever tells you)

Brazen Careerist: 3 things Gen Y can expect from the recession

PayScale: Joe the Plumber and the middle-class squeeze

The Work Buzz (CareerBuilder): Outrageous excuses for missing work

Personal interests

Ted Talks: James Nachtwey: TED Prize wish: Share a vital story with the world

Spreed:News: Speed read your news. Sign up for free and read news and blogs at 300-1,500 works per minute. [Via Wired]

600 words by Esther J. Cepeda: Se habla Oprah: Spanish-language translation actually ignores Hispanics

Creative Resumes Gone Wrong

I recently posted some examples of creative resumes that I loved. If you have the talent or you hire a creative hand, it's definitely a way to stand out from the crowd. But trying to be creative like this poor fellow could be disastrous!

Here is an example of a creative resume idea gone wrong (yes, I took the person's name off) passed along to me by a friend who works in a PR agency. The candidate sent this 8-page Powerpoint presentation as his response from the agency's Craigslist.org job posting.

Lessons learned

• A creative resume needs to maintain professionalism and credibility.
• Knowledge of design features is very different than knowing how to use them well!

Creative resumes

Franceso Mugnai recently posted the 20 most creative resumes on his blog. Here are some of my favorites.

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Personally, I love the idea of resume and portfolio design, but it's still unconventional for most industries and certainly risky if people find the design distasteful. If one chooses to show off their creativity (or hire a pro to do it), it's important to remember the resume still needs substance. It needs to identify your skills, accomplishments, work history and education. A good resume design only won't get you the interview, but your experiences and previous successes will and you must be able to demonstrate those on one or two pages max (and not all of the resumes above accomplish this).

What do you think? How creative do you get with your resume?