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2) Writing letters - on paper, physical letters - is the most underrated professional skill there is. Every bureaucracy in the world is a machine to turn letters into things you want. When possible, hand-deliver the letter while wearing a business suit. (Not joking.)

As intriguing as I find this idea, I couldn't help picture it a bit creepy to write and hand deliver(I can do one or the other). Then again, that's probably why it works. What context have you done that for?

I very rarely write but do have a handwritten journal which incidentally everyone in my life wants to read though I mostly figured it's to find what I've written about them.




Immigration, taxes, landlord issues (the tpoic was "compelling reasons why, despite being a foreigner, I would be a poor option to steal from"), resumes (+), etc.

+ I think resumes are for suckers but if you're going to write one you might as well be a sucker in a business suit.


Really? What do you do instead of a resume? Just a cover letter?


Oh, you still need a resume but you don't start by delivering it. You start by talking to the person who is doing the hiring. the resume only comes out when they say "I'd like to hire you please send your resume to HR".


I can't emphasize this more. Do not hand out your resume like it's free. Value it. Don't give out more than what's needed. Create the "need to talk." Don't ever dump a resume into one of those corporate HR portals. It's a dead end. Make the HR guy work towards asking you for your resume. HR has to "earn" your resume -- 'cos it's tasty.


Bingo.


Agreed. Plus it's better to have some sort of public "surface area", presence, reputation, whatever, thats out there, and let people come to you. I'm very close to living a 0% resume life right now (not perfect, got a recruiter demanding one last week but they get off to a bad start with me when that happens, and I have lots of non-resume-needing opportunities on my plate to pick from). I think resumes are:

(1) retarded

(2) archaic relic of past age (like a horse & buggy in a world of interstate highways & helicopters)

(3) distorting

(4) low fidelity

(5) too confining

(6) too static/dead (not interactive, searchable and multimedia, like a web page)

(7) surpassed by the ability to have online presences and profiles

and (8) far far inferior to just showing your past work directly and relying on word-of-mouth recommendations and Internet findability, plus, having a personal conversation and telling someone what you can do for them, and doing it.

I once got a paying gig because when the client typed in a certain combination of keywords in Google, I came up as the #1 result, 1st page (!). You can't beat that. And that sort of recruiting/hiring/sales channel was just not possible even 20 years ago. Let's take advantage of it. Death to the past. Long live the present-becoming-the-future. :)




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