The folks at SlideShare aren’t declaring the resume dead but are dubbing it “old school.”
In a newsletter I received this morning, SlideShare tells the story of how Laura Gainor (pictured) told her story in a slideshow targeted to a prospective employer
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Laura Gainor wasn’t always the PR & Social Media Strategist at Comet Branding and this is the story of how that came to be.
When Laura found out she and her husband were moving from Charlotte to Milwaukee, she reached out to companies in the area, including Comet Branding who tweeted about a job opening.
Laura set out to get herself hired by launching a #LauraGainorToMilwaukee campaign that mixed in Twitter, FourSquare and SlideShare.
Laura and her husband had already planned a trip to Milwaukee. She made a poster out of the Comet Brand logo and posted pictures of the poster in various venues at Milwaukee with a Foursquare check-in and a tweet. The campaign was fun, spontaneous and creative and showcased Laura’s personality and creativity.
But Laura also wanted to showcase her experience as well as creative and strategic talents. So she uploaded a presentation to SlideShare and periodically tweeted links to that presentation.
… Laura pulled together photos to create a virtual resume as well as screenshots of her Foursquare check-ins from Milwaukee.
“My goal for my SlideShare presentation was to create a story about who I was, my professional experience, showcase my talents that would make me a good fit for Comet Branding, as well as pull together my #LauraGainorToMilwaukee story into one place,” Laura explained.
The very day Laura’s presentation was uploaded, it made it to SlideShare’s ‘Most Popular’ and was passed around on SlideShare and the Twittersphere. She got tweets and direct messages from all over.
… Comet Branding also noticed Laura. They contacted her to setup a first interview. On March 1st she went in for a second interview and was immediately offered the position!
Laura’s presentation, embedded below, has “old-school” resume elements, but it also tells aspects of her personal story, such as her marriage and acquisition of a dog. She also makes her slideshow quite specific to the targeted employer. Her mashup of social-media tools to tell the story of coming to Milwaukee is novel. A slideshow, of course, presents the same problems that a video resume does — it’s time-consuming to view and can open the candidate up to discrimination. But for pursuing a social-media job, Laura’s slideshow makes a dandy storytelling resume.