Markus
Urban never wants to write a resume.
I met Markus at the ProBlogger
get together in New York and was immediately interested in his approach to business and people.
Why does this intelligent, professional, under
30-year old, man aspire to avoid resume writing?
He wants to build relationships and make his
livelihood based on his reputation.
Is that so crazy?
We use resumes to introduce ourselves to
someone that doesn’t know us. Or,
perhaps, to enable someone that does know us to introduce us to their
colleagues.
While resumes offer a wealth of information about our
background and past accomplishments, how much do our capabilities, intellect,
or personalities shine through?
Relationships are far more enlightening than
resumes!
(Although I’m going to continue using both, I
can’t wait to see how this turns out for Markus!)
Hi Connie!
Nice to see you – you’ll have to check back after the next year and tell us how you did!!!
Ann
In just over one year of (successful) self employment I have used my resume exactly once. (And I am pretty sure that person didn’t even read it.) So I’m with Marcus. Let’s see if I can make it another year without needing to put out that paper (or electronic) summary!
Thanks for keeping the blog going Ann!
Markus – I knew you’d like that!
Chris – Interesting point!
I’m not ready to throw my resume out just yet. What interested me was that it initially seemed radical to me – but then when I started thinking about it seemed somewhat less so.
How many people do we know that are very busy on a 100% referral business? How many professionals are recruited out of firms when they’re not even looking for a job just because of their reputation?
It’s not THAT far fetched!
I guess it depends, Ann. There are some organizations that are so structured that they need to have that sheet of paper in their personnel file. If you want to get in with them it might be pretty tough without a resume.
On the other hand, someone who doesn’t want to do up a resume probably wouldn’t fit in well in an organization that rigidly structured anyway.
I am 😉
Great strategy, Liz.
Liz –
What an amazing story. The way you tell it (and the way you talk about your businesses over on your site) just makes me smile ear to ear!!!
(I’m sure Markus will be thrilled too!)
Ann
Nice blog and great idea.
I haven’t used a resume for 14 years. When I moved to Ireland 14 years ago I did up a great resume.
I then called a number of interesting organisations and asked for 20 minutes of a key person’s time to introduce myself. I said that I didn’t want a job with them. All I wanted was their advice on who else I could meet that did interesting work in the arts and community development sectors.
No one said no – and I met some great people. I brought along my resume and not one person wanted to see it after we began chatting!!
I had my first contracts within 6 weeks and have been inundated with great work and fab clients ever since.
Just for the fun last year I worked with my brother to develop a brochure and visual branding for the business (Focused Solutions).I give it to clients and they love it but they don’t need it.
All my work comes through clients recommendations and a reputation I have grown. The foundation of all my work is the relationships and real people connections I make with my clients. We work collaboratively and I genuinely enjoy them – even and particularly when we get stuck in a process.
The relationships I build and treasure grow over time into trust – and then it gets really interesting. That’s when we all begin to take some risks and challenge each other – and that’s when we make a real difference.
I dust of the resume every once in a while just to please myself. It’s a marker of an interesting career journey with some pretty amazing people.
Liz