May 2004
My Career is My Business - Career Management in the era of Globalization
Speakers: Cynthia Typaldos, Founder & President, ProfGuilds
Heather Hamilton, Sr. Talent Scout, Microsoft
Sachin Gangupantula, ProfGuilds ResumeBlog Team

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The May 5th meeting of the SVPMA covered managing one's professional presence in an age of commoditization and globalization. Cynthia Typaldos, founder of Software Product Marketing eGroup spoke first on how the job market has changed and the emergence of professional guilds. Sachin Gangupantula, Director of Business Development for the SVPMA, followed with a "how to" session on setting up a professional blog. Heather Hamilton, Senior Recruiter for Microsoft finished with how she uses blogs and the internet to identify key talent. Together, the three speakers gave a full picture of how to successfully manage one's career in 21st century.

Ms. Typaldos' presentation was aptly titled My Career is MY Business. She opened by speaking about how the job market has changed. Business has transformed to become project based, where teams form and disband to meet each challenge. The Internet has enabled these groups to be distributed throughout the globe. Further, the best people for a project do not always work for the company. The Internet has made it possible for companies to easily find the best people for a problem that needs to be solved.

Professionals have similarly adapted to the changing market place. Professionals are no longer loyal to their employer. In fact, they identify more with their profession than their company. The recent recession has led many individuals to realize that they are their own business. At times they will work for a company, other periods they will contract, sometimes they will do both, and on occasion neither.

Social software, which is a synonym for a web community, can allow a professional to be found for a project or employment opportunity as well as work with a group to solve a problem. Individuals, therefore, need to maintain a persistent identity and reputation. You can further enhance your reputation by developing a deep expertise as a differentiator. Having no presence on the web is the kiss of death. If you receive an email from someone whom you don't know, the first thing most people do is Google the individual. A blog is one tool for building this presence and becoming visible on the web. Unlike a personal website, a blog requires minimal maintenance. You can further enhance your presence by linking to a portfolio, speaking engagements, articles, and white papers that directly show your accomplishments.

Mr. Gangupantula then gave an overview of ResumeBlogs™ on the SPM website. The ResumeBlog is one of the fastest and simplest ways to develop a professional online presence because blogs are trivial to create, searched by search engines, and are easy to link to other colleagues. Your resume blog can provide a 360° view of your career. It can contain an overview and description of your skills, a photo, contact information, colleagues, resume, fields of expertise, accomplishments, press mentions, articles, and presentations. Mr. Gangupantula then stepped the audience through the four screens at http://www.blogger.com to create a resume blog and use the ProfGuilds template. This "how to" presentation can be found at the SVPMA website http://www.svpma.org/preso.htm. You can then register your resume with the ProfGuilds engine, which are automatically submitted to Google, at http://profguilds.sa-star.com. You can return to the same site to view the statistics of who is viewing your resume.

Heather Hamilton, Senior Recruiter, Marketing Talent Acquisition at Microsoft, was the final speaker. She offered her insight into how a recruiter searches for talent. Ms. Hamilton spoke about how her world is changing. She has noticed an increased focus on talent in addition to skills. She is now looking for people who can assume different roles, since specific jobs often change. Social networking changed the landscape. Recruiters all use Google now as well as searching through blogs. Their job is to find the "best" in the industry, so it is important for candidates to be visible.

In summary, there are a number of new technologies that are changing how work is accomplished, how recruiters find talent, and how one should frame their career. Professionals need to be their own talent agent, creating a presence and reputation in their industries and professional circles.