Master Career Counselor

Carla Hunter, President of Career Span, Inc. is a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association and a Certified Career Coach by the National Board for Certified Counselors. She is an expert in writing resumes, effective job search strategies and interviewing success. Most recently, with over 20 years of navigating the complexity of today's world of work, she published "Finding Your Place in the World of Work", a career interest inventory (2014) and CareerView, an iPad app. As a private practice career counselor and a workforce development consultant, this blog is Carla's trove of ideas, trends, forecasts, and career tips for finding meaningful work.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Your Career Word Cloud

Today's google search of you is now your resume for an employer.  Your identity, pictures, words, ideas and expression can be accessed online with a simple click of the button. Employers are certain to google you when considering an interview.  Through Facebook, You Tube, Twitter and any other social media tools, your web presence is their quick access to your character, activities and friends. 
As technology progresses, all of us will be quickly identified by our online "word cloud".  This is critical for you to understand.

A word cloud is a constellation of descriptors gleaned from your presence on the web through social media.
My word cloud contains these hash tags:  #career #interviews #job #resume #workforcedevelopment #counselor #life #careercounselor #coach #blogger #entreprenuer #trainer #author. 

What's in yours? 

Finding the word cloud of your resume

Using wordle as an integral part of your word cloud identity is a key to your success.  To begin, copy and paste the text of your most current resume into wordle and let it give you a word cloud of your skills. What words appear?  What words are missing?  This tool can harness your talent and help you articulate what you bring to an employer.  Hash tags (descriptive words that start with #) are going to only increase in defining your online presence. 

Social media and the power of it is here to stay.  Make certain you know how to use it wisely.  The absolute worse than you can do is ignore it.