This potentialRESUME blog is intended to serve as an ongoing online chronicle of the resumes of potentialKEN kisselman.
Why ‘blog’ my resumes?
Due to circumstance, I find that I have written and rewritten my resume numerous times over the past couple of years… posting and reposting… distributing and redistributing… revised and alternate versions of how I catalogue and position my professional history and accomplishments. Often it is simply a case of finding new and different ways to ‘slice, dice, and serve’ the same information. Each incarnation sees new information added and other information removed (primarily driven by the constraints of length and/or the context of use). Many times the task has been to reframe my story relative to the specifics of a given opportunity. More often it is simply a case of attempting to find an alternate or more compelling way to present the case for my more generalized qualifications. Resumes sent to recruiters or companies vanish into the ether having only a limited recipient audience. Each new resume I post to a career portal replaces its predecessor as the primary statement of my career identity. I remain the same person and, although I write differently about my experiences and accomplishments, what I have done in the past ultimately remains unchanged. Blogging, as an ongoing chronicle, may provide a medium in which to record these alternate self-presentations along with some of my parenthetical thinking about the process of developing and maintaining ‘my resume’ over time. At the moment this is primarily a retroactive task of posting past documents. Over time my intent is to evolve my approach to create a more ‘living’ view of my professional work both past and present.
As I begin to establish this online potentialFOOTPRINT for myself as both a human entity and a conceptual brand, I felt that it might be wise to also begin a parallel posting of these professional documents. As an interactive industry professional I find that so many colleagues create a blog or other similar web presence with an eye not only toward sharing their personal/professional opinions and ideas but also as a means to ‘career advancement’. Although I’d like to believe that my objectives for establishing this potentialNETWORK of interrelated blogs is broader than simply to create a career-driven online calling card, I do believe that there is value in also providing a sidebar chronicling my professional credentials for those who might be interested in exploring that aspect of my identity as well. If nothing else posting blog versions of my Word resumes enters my statements about my career into the Google-able public record and also affords colleagues an opportunity to comment on my claims if they so choose. Also, having accrued this collection of alternate resumes, this format allows me a venue to post many of the alternate versions simultaneously in one place so that I can refer interested parties here should the need arise.
Over time it is my intent to use both the potentialRESUME and potentialPORTFOLIO blogs as platforms to post the evolving ‘story of my career’. At this early stage of the process, I believe that the best place to start is to simply post some of alternate versions of my resume that I have produced over the past few years. At the moment my plan is that there will be more and different things to come in the future.
