The sooner the better I say.  There really is no reason to have to be dealing with word documents and pdfs anymore with the rise of Linked In (or even leading jobsites like Monster).  Any HR department with any common sense must certainly see the value in being able to simply get the information they need quickly without having to dig through email attachments.

There is a tremendous amount of value to having your resume be a living and breathing entity.  It gives prospective employees the ease of being able to easily update their career inventory on the fly and have it available to anyone, anytime.  One place to update and easily share with whoever you wish.

Linked In does have a little known feature that allows you to export your Linked In profile as a pdf, so if you do have old school requests, you can actually still send off a pdf version of your resume.  One nice feature I’d like to see Linked In create is to make this feature a bit more robust.  Right now the export is a fairly bland output.  It would be great to have the option to export into a few additional layouts so that the output is a bit more polished.  Something like that would most certainly make using Linked In as your exclusive home to your resume a done deal.

So what say you?  Are you close to making your resume a web only experience?  Or are you still stuffing inboxes with attachments?  And if you are a recruiter or in HR, what will it take to completely move away from the old school methods?

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I absolutely love it when I find incredible tools online that help enable your productivity, efficiency & marketability.  They can often be hard to come by, but there are some great ones out there and the following list are the ones that come to mind recently that you may or may not have heard of or used.

1. Search Status Firefox Extension – This is my new favorite plug in.  So simple and unobtrusive, yet highly addicting and very informative.  Quite simply, this plug-in shows you any website is performing in the far right bottom of the Firefox web browser.  Quickly and easily you can see Google Pagerank, Alexa, Compete, and a variety of other data points.  If you are a serious blogger or a digital marketer, it’s a must have.

2. Xmarks – Managing bookmarks can be tedious, but Xmarks is a great little piece of software.  You create an account, and install the software on all your machines, and whalla, you can ensure that your browser bookmarks are synced up across all your computers.  You can also access your bookmarks on their site if you are ever on a public computer.

3. bit.ly Sidebar – URL shortening is all the rave, and bit.ly has certainly put their stake in the ground as the industry leader.  What makes their offering so great is the statistical analysis and easy of use.  Sign up for an account, and make sure you use their bit.ly Sidebar bookmarklet.  It makes sharing extremely easy, and will automatically track all your URL shortening so you can see how much activity results from what you share.

4. SocialMention.com – What a great free tool.  It’s one of the few resources that is free that allows you to monitor keywords across the web.  A great way to test it out is to simply search your name and you can a nice little dashboard of information including measurements of sentiment, passion, reach and a variety of other data points.  It’s certainly not professional grade, but for a free tool, it’s a great starting point for social media/digital marketers.

5. Dropbox – I heart Dropbox.  So easy to use, great UI, and of course free (they do have paid upgrades).  Who can’t use 2GB of cloud storage at there disposal.  There are countless times where I find the perfect situation to be able to drop a file on a desktop folder, and know that I can get to it on one of my other machines.  So good.  The iPhone app is the icing on the cake.

6. Tweetdeck – I know most of those reading will know of Tweetdeck, but I have to add this to my list as I’ve tried practically all of the different Twitter apps, and in my opinion Tweetdeck just seems to work out the best.  Logically everything is laid out well, and it fulfills my needs perfectly.  However when it comes to a mobile Twitter app see #7.

7. Tweetie – Best iPhone Twitter app hands down.  Clean, easy to use, and just works.  I don’t use it for anything heavy, but it’s a perfect mobile Twitter experience anytime I need to post, read or just check in.

8. Tweetadder – I’ve written about Tweetadder before, but it bears repeating.  It’s a great piece of software if you are serious about managing your Twitter account and want to build a strong, relevant following.  I started at 500, and I’m closing in on 30,000 in just 6 months or so of casual use.

9. FriendFeed – Most people of heard of FriendFeed, but not as many use it.  Here’s my #1 reason for you to consider; increasing your blog subscribers.  Of course this only really works if you use Feedburner (which many bloggers do), but my blog subscribers skyrocketed once I started using FriendFeed.

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Twitter is certainly an interesting phenomenon. On one hand, it’s all the rage these days and what practically everyone is talking about. On the other hand, most people try it once and never return. In fact roughly 60% of users fail to return (Nielson Wire), so it’s clearly a tool that only web savvy users are sticking with. It’s not so much because Twitter is a difficult tool to use, it’s just that for most normal, every day people, it’s a useless distraction. Unless you’re a celebrity or a professional athlete, most people do not care what you had for breakfast, or what the person next to you in line smells like.

However that does not mean that Twitter cannot be a useful tool. In fact, it can be a tremendous asset to those in business, or looking to promote anything whether it be themselves, a project, a good cause. Twitter’s main asset is it’s ability to track and direct. For businesses that means another channel to connect current and new customers to your product or brand. For websites it means another traffic building resource.

I originally was one of the 60% when I signed up for Twitter, but after attending some interesting lectures on the service, I gave it another shot and since then have found some use for it. I’ve been able to increase my blog traffic roughly 25% simply by employing some basic Twitter usage in to my blogging routine.

Here’s how you can take advantage of Twitter depending on your situation:

1. Traffic Generation. An immediate benefit of Twitter usage is the ability to drive traffic to your website(s). By simply using Twitter to spread information about your website, you’ll instantly see a spike in your site’s traffic. Obviously the larger and more relevant your following is, the stronger results you will see.
2. Find Customers. Twitter can be a great tool for finding new customers. By simply using Twitter Search you can find relevant users that will find value in your offerings.
3. Branding. Whether personally or for a business, Twitter can be a powerful tool to extend your brand. By developing a casual persona in the Twitterverse, you can establish yourself as a connected social personality.
4. Hire People. Traditional methods are a dying breed. Like Craigslist, Twitter can be a valuable source for hiring. And it costs you nothing to post.
5. Increase Your Network. Sometimes you just want to extend your social or professional network. Use Twitter Search to find relevant individuals to connect with. Use tools such as Social Too to auto follow those that follow you.
6. Feedback. Whether it be an online survey, or you simply want some feedback on your product line, use Twitter to get the word out and increase your results.
7. Event Coverage. If you’re hosting any type of event, Twitter can be a great tool to give real time updates to those either in attendance or those unable to attend. It also makes your company or organization look with the times.
8. Cross Promotion. Most users of Twitter use Facebook and vice versa. If you have a blog or company website, your best bet is to integrate all 3 with each other by visibly having your Twitter and Facebook identities on your site, and utilizing Twitter and Facebook’s cross posting features. That way no matter where you post information, it aggregates everywhere saving you time, and ensuring your message gets maximum exposure.
9. Learn. Despite popular belief that the only thing people post are meaningless daily activities, there are plenty of users that share interesting articles. In fact, in many cases late breaking news hits Twitter before any of the major sites or networks.

I’ll be writing more about my Twitter experiences and sharing best tips and practices in the coming weeks. Feel free to get started by following me.

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