My Resume Was a Showstopper Before They Read a Single Word
On a Monday evening I rushed along one way, downtown, traffic as I wrapped up a call with a mentee and searched for parking. After circling the block several times, I parallel parked feeling like a boss as I was mentoring and simultaneously job hunting for myself. I was getting sh*t done.
I was on my way to a career fair for underrepresented people in tech. As I exited my vehicle to put money in the meter, I felt a tug at my thigh and heard a rip… of course I ripped a hole in my pants on my way to a networking event where minuscule first impressions and 3 minute conversations reign over all.
My feeling of badassery immediately started to drain, I had been fighting mishaps and chance inconveniences all day to try and make it to this event. The rip in my pants was the final hole in my balloon and I started to immediately deflate as I thought about how I didn’t have printed copies of my newest resume and had now acquired this lovely new pant hole. I started walking towards the event(5 blocks away) not entirely sure I was going to enter it since I felt unprepared and a little defeated….
After a brief call with a member of my support squad I realized I am the queen of QR codes and ice breakers. I screenshot the most recent version of my resume and put it into a QR code along with my name and email. I put my bag on the side that had the pant hole and marched slightly sweaty into the event.
“Necessity is the mother of invention!”
When noticed, I used the pants as a funny anecdote and presented my resume as paperless. Before we even got into the details of my history and what I was looking for, everyone I provided the resume QR code to was blown away and thought it was so cool that they could immediately bring up my resume on their phone. They took a quick picture of the code and within seconds had my professional summary and contact information in their pocket. Seems like too easy of a win right?
Once we started to talk tech and my career details, I focused on what I like and why I like it, so all things data. Several times I was met to my level of enthusiasm and told that they loved my energy or passion.
Update: It’s been a few months since this job fair and I am still getting notifications of people scanning the QR code I made for this event. That is the other lovely thing about QR codes, you can make unique ones for each event you attend which allows you to see the event you are getting the most attention from. Now that we have moved into a social distancing lifestyle I would say this approach has a huge benefit for remote or chat based networking events both from the tracking perspective and in helping you stand out from all the boxed faces in the virtual crowd.
In the end I considered the event one of my more successful networking events with meaningful connections. Of the 3 cards I collected from companies I was interested in, every single one reached out to connect with me on a professional networking site the following day. This included one note that specified:
“We do not have any positions right now that match your passion or skill set, but we regularly bid for new contract work and may add some positions like this in the future.”
Let me emphasize that for one moment: My passion!
My passion and skill set but passion first! Not my years of experience, not my qualifications, not my technical ability but my passion. I call attention to the lack of these things in the message not because they aren’t important or necessary to perform the job of a developer well. I call attention because as important as those things are, it is not what made me memorable and it wasn’t what an employer felt was more important to mention first.
That recognition will always be more important to me and gets heavily factored in when I’m considering a company and role. Although a simple gimmick made me initially catch attention, my passion for data is what made me memorable, the QR code just makes it easy to start talking about me.
How I created a free QR code for my resume:
I used a basic QR generator(linked here) but if you look others up almost any will do. I love the one I used because it was easy to make a cool, customized design, all on my mobile device. Literally: I made it on the 5 block walk to a job fair, all on my cell phone.
Signing up will give you more options on the type of content you can link but if you are in a pinch and doing it on site through a mobile device it is just easier to use the free version with a screenshot.
It allows you to customize every aspect of the QR code right down to the shorten url link, shape, code style and frame. I went out of my way to match the color theme from my resume throughout the QR image. It was an easy way to make it pop.
I share my experiences, growth and learning moments. None of this is advice but simply more data to inspire your own experiences, growth and learning moments.
