I am not a trendy person.

I was late to the game on contact lenses, skinny jeans, and Birkenstocks. I still can’t figure out how to flat-iron my hair, and I have been wearing earrings from the 80’s since the 80’s.

But when it comes to the internet and most things Geek, I tend to consider myself to be somewhere near the front lines. Even if I’m disinclined towards something – I’m not one for Instagram, for example – I usually know it’s out there.

So when the term ‘Twesume’ popped up in front of me, I wrinkled my nose at it and ran a few searches.

It turns out, I’m pretty significantly behind on my twesume. You guys, this has been around for a long time. Is this it? Is this the moment where the internet begins passing me by?

What on Earth Is A Twesume?

Twesume (tweh-soo-may) (I assume): A resume condensed into less than 140 characters, thus allowing for RT/MRTs. Often includes the #twesume and #hireme hashtags.

I shall now proceed to write the rest of this blog post without flinching every time I type the word ‘twesume’.*

It’s exactly what it sounds like. A Twitter resume.

This seems sensible, since more and more recruiting is done through social media these days, and plenty of job seekers have Twitter accounts. I also came across the suggestion of putting your twesume on your Twitter Bio–this strikes me as brilliant, because I never know what to put on mine.

Like many other people I know, I wear a lot of hats. I’m a writer, a social media strategist, and I do some consulting. This is in addition to my day job. Clearly, I’m not going to get all of that onto my twesume, so in order to use one strategically I would have to pick one.

So let’s try.

Target a Market

I have a particular love for process documentation, which stems from several years spent as a temp. I always say that the idea behind good process documentation is that someone should be able to walk in off the street, untrained; follow a process already laid out for them, and do any job.

Maybe not as well as the person they’re filling in for, but certainly to the extent that no balls get dropped while the person they’re replacing is away. I call this the ‘Hit by a Bus’ theory of process documentation.

It’s an area in which I would be interested in contracting or consulting. Good, now I have a specific market to target. Now, er…How would I find them? How would they find me?

The Search Bar is Your Friend

Remember the annoying Microsoft Word paperclip? Yeah, that was awful. The Twitter search bar is the opposite of that paperclip.

I searched on a few variations of ‘Process Documentation’ and you know what? Most of the hits I got were job postings or requests for proposals.

Outside of using my friend the search bar, I read a few tweets where users were sending their twesume directly to job search agencies, headhunters, and so on. #hireme seems ubiquitous.

Distill Your Entire Professional Life

According to Shakespeare, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Shake off the irony of that and let’s proceed to being witty, shall we?

Obviously, the job or work I want to do has to be in here. That’s ‘Process Design and Documentation’. It’s Twitter, so I automatically replace ‘and’ with ‘&’.

I need to talk about myself, specific to my attitude towards the thing I want to do. So how do I approach process design and documentation? Well, I am passionate about clarity, consistency and teamwork. (This sounds like a resume cliché. It is annoyingly true, I drive my coworkers insane with workflows and checklists.) Worth noting, I think, is that I also have over a decade of experience.

I want to include hashtags wherever possible, without being annoying. Certainly I will be using #twesume and #hireme.
I wordsmithed a little and came up with:

“@xxxxxxxxxx Clarity, consistency, experience. #hireme for #process #documentation & design! #twesume”

That’s 98 characters. I’m going to want to address it directly to potential clients, so I’ve allowed ten characters for their handle. If someone wants to retweet that, it will add another 12-14 characters depending on how they do it. I would also add a shortened bit.ly or ow.ly link to my LinkedIn profile or website, which is another ~14 characters. This lands me at a comfortable 126 characters.

Done!

I’m not ready to give up my lengthy CV, but I will certainly add my #twesume to how I look for contracts and clients. How about you? Would you try it? Have you already written your twesume?

*I failed completely at this. Can’t win ’em all.