The first time I came across Hanna Phan’s presentation resume, or Présumé™, I admired it as terribly clever and creative but decided against writing about it because it doesn’t truly tell a story.
But the next time the Présumé™ came over my virtual transom (at right is a
slide from it), I decided to give it a second look and determined it was worth writing about because
- Hanna’s story about how it came to be is compelling.
- Even though it doesn’t tell a story, there is no reason other job-seekers can’t tell stories in their Présumés™, especially now that SlideRocket has unveiled ready-to-use presentation resumes available for customization.
Hanna details in her backstory that she had deployed traditional job-search methods for months without success:
I received a number of phone calls and interviews, but not a single call back. It was discouraging. I felt vulnerable and defeated but another part of me didn’t want just another job. Each time I thought of punching in and out, busying myself with status meetings, ending my day just to start all over again — well, it just made me tired.
Inspired by a Seth Godin podcast, Hanna concluded that “the problem with a resume is that it doesn’t scream, ‘This is ME! I’m creative, energetic, full of life’ etc. and there’s no visual way to express what you want to say to someone through a piece of paper.”
Instead, she decided to “explore other ways to tell my story — the story of why I wanted to work for a certain company.”
That company turned out to be SlideRocket, whose own product she deftly used to craft a “love letter” to the company. She tweeted the address for the slideshow to SlideRocket CEO Chuck Dietrich, who immediately wanted to interview her. Ultimately, she was hired as a product manager.
My analysis of Hanna’s Présumé™ is that it indeed does a great job of providing a glimpse into her personality — that she is, in fact, “creative, energetic, full of life etc.” She also does a superb job of describing why she wants to work for SlideRocket. In neither case, in my opinion, does the presentation reach the level of story, but it does offer story elements, especially the element of character.
Dietrich didn’t cite Hanna’s story as what inspired him to interview her, though he noted that her presume told him a lot about her. “While the way Hanna reached out to me certainly got my attention,” he wrote to me in response to my question about the biggest single factor in consider her for employment, “what sealed the deal was her creative use of SlideRocket to show not only that she was passionate and hungry for the job, but that she had the skillset and entrepreneurial spirit to be successful in the role. Just as a picture is worth 1,000 words, her Présumé was worth an entire interview. It brought so many facets of her as an individual to life in a way that typed words on a page simply could not.”
SlideRocket offers its own slideshow introducing the Présumé™ concept.
SlideRocket’s Présumé™ section offers three Présumé™ templates as a starting place for job-seekers.
Presume has free and premium levels of service, as well as a free 14-day trial in which premium features are offered.
I would love to see some job-seekers truly use the presume as a story vehicle. Hanna perhaps didn’t need to go full throttle with telling her story because she effectively demonstrated her passion for her prospective employer’s product by using that product effectively. For others, story may be the element that engages their next employer.