By Lily A. McLane-Dalton
March 16, 2021
I remember growing up in St. Augustine, FL watching a one-man band performing on Saint George Street every weekend. He was a multitasking genius; playing the guitar, singing, and drumming while he danced for tourists. Who would have predicted that decades later, I would be my own one-woman show in my less amusing career? Having multiple roles feels like a constant juggling act.
Personal Branding.
Through some research, trial and error, and consulting with professionals, I have learned the importance of personal branding. For years, my simple text-based resume served me extremely well. More importantly, my role was much simpler and required less expression.
The abundance of social media and networking sites has allowed recruiters to view a much larger pool of potential candidates – making the hunt for your next job ever more competitive. We are no longer limited to the local job pool and word of mouth referrals. Personal branding is the art of marketing oneself to recruiting officers and showcasing individual skills.
Multiple Roles.
From my experience in job seeking, the biggest hurdle came with deciding how to properly market myself to recruiters without limiting myself or being so overly broad that it became unclear what I do or what jobs I wanted.
My professional history has been primarily as a paralegal. As I’m sure many other professionals have experienced in small to mid-sized offices the role one person holds does not actually limit their professional duties. Many employees adopt and evolve into new roles, which is the situation I found myself in.
I was no longer just a paralegal. I no longer just drafted documents and scheduled hearings. I found myself managing accounting/collections, workloads for multiple people, marketing, interviewing and recruiting new hires, and developing business plans for our firm’s growth. This was wonderful for professional growth; however, the job descriptions of paralegal, accountant, and marketing assistant sound vastly different to recruiters and can quickly oversaturate any resume.
Solution.
For my preference, I found that a clean and concise resume produced the best results. I had to really do some digging to determine what was most worth marketing to potential employers. I broke down my roles into separate resumes. For my role as a paralegal, that was easy as the bulk of my experience involved climbing up the corporate ladder in law firms. For the other roles, I had to creatively explain how my job description applied to those law firms. Now I had clear resumes depending on the job I was applying for.
My advice is to keep your resume streamlined to one page. Most employers know what I did as a paralegal, but what else could I offer them? How enthusiastically could my resume portray who I am? I also provided a link in my resume to a virtual portfolio showcasing my accomplishments and personal biography. Yes, my strive for consistency forced me to create a separate portfolio for each resume as well. I felt that this approach would allow employers to view a little more detail of who I am before deciding to contact me or write me off.
Closing Thoughts.
Ultimately, we want to make a recruiter’s job easier in understanding who we are and why we are the ideal candidate. By removing the weight from one resume and making separate streamlined versions, the result is much less burdensome on the recruiter. I hope that some of this insight has been helpful and I encourage others to find a method that suits their professional style as well.