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The future
I’m still holding onto my future prediction that instead of a resume, video resume, cover letter, portfolio, paper business card, and references document, your personal eBrand will exist as a single URL. You won’t be able to toss 10 different URL’s to hiring managers because they don’t have time to make sense of them. In your world of personal branding, you see all of these websites and blogs as assets, and I couldn’t agree more. In the future, you will need to compile, centralize and store these elements into a master website (yourname.com). The future is all about consolidation of social networks and seamless integration across websites. Also, there will be heavy emphasis on mobile computing, where someone will be able to conduct a background check on you from anywhere. One URL will tell your complete story.
Now is not the time
When I speak about this future prediction, I’m thinking a minimum of 10 years in the future because HR databases are still present and social media (despite our bubble) is still in infancy, just like personal branding. Whether it’s a corporate or job board database, they collect similar information from you, such as work experience, education, etc. Basically, this is the information that is included within a resume. Over time, social media will force these companies to undergo a metamorphasis. First, they will open up their boards. Second, they will capture different content, such as video resumes and finally, they will realize that with a single URL, one can experience an entire candidate.
For one, there is not enough comfort around a single URL representing an individual or applicant. Also, believe it or not, only a small percentage of the population has registered theirname.com (domain name). Where this gets tricky is that everyone in the world would have to have their domain name, yet people share the same name.
I get a lot of emails asking me about how to choose the proper domain name, despite some being taken. Try using either your middle name, middle initial, nickname or pick a concept and then tie your name to it in the title (in the description as well).
The new HR database (In the year 2020)
How to prepare for the future
- 1) Purchase yourname.com
- 2) Start a blog, either on yourname.com or yourtopic.com
- 3) Register your blog on Technorati.com
- 4) Write byline articles for online websites and guest posts for blogs
- 5) Become a personal PR person and pitch your story to media
- 6) Use Twitter and email to build deeper relationships
- 7) Create a website summary of your personal eBrand, which includes all of the above
- 8 ) Use that URL on all your promotional material moving forward
The future is never certain, but by preparing today you will be best equipped for confronting the future.
Related posts:
- The Personal Brand Marketplace of the Future. Are Your Prepared? I think it’s an understatement to say the world...
- Brand Yourself Before Someone Else Brands You Discovering your personal brand is the first step in...
- Prep for the Future with Lessons from the Present Advice for the employed: learn well from the struggles...
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Another thing that brings an interesting element into the mix on this subject is that more and more, experts are actually advising hiring managers not to use things like profiles on social networks in their screening and hiring decisions. There aren’t legal precedents yet, but it’s only a matter of time before an applicant or employee sues an employer for any number of things (harassment, discrimination, etc.) related to information that they have online at MySpace, Facebook, like their race, age, faith, etc.
So the question is, will personal websites fall into this legal conundrum too?
All this is not to say, however, that your eBrand isn’t very powerful in your career – if you’re a “knowledge worker,” that is. This whole concept doesn’t currently seem to apply outside this segement of the workforce, and there’s a very real fault line there, but that’s another subject for another time. For knowledge workers, the relationships you build online are tremendously powerful in your professional development and career path, so I wonder if in the future, we will start to see people with strong, active brands moving much more quickly up and around in their careers, based simply on their broad, supple networks and their demonstrated expertise and skill.
@ Tiffany – Excellent comment. Looking forward to how everything pans out in the future.
[...] to tag “a digital representation of you on the Internet”, recently suggested on his Personal Branding Blog: “I’m still holding onto my future prediction that instead of a resume, video resume, cover [...]
zhiwoqasyhphlykuwell, hi admin adn people nice forum indeed. how’s life? hope it’s introduce branch