We are no longer in the written age. We are in the show-me age: The age where we create a visual for all of our experiences. We no longer say we are at the beach. We now share a picture of our perfectly manicured toes against the backdrop of the ocean. It tells the story WAY better than “Enjoying my view this morning.” Related:3 Tools To Explore An Anonymous Job Search Humans process images 60,000 times faster than words. Images can provoke a faster emotional connection than words. The shift to visual content is permeating society for the better. Visual content allows you to communicate faster. And when you have a limited amount of time to make an impression, visual content can be the difference between phone screen and rejection pile. The challenge is that in the job search, we are not accustomed to thinking about our work visually. We have been trained to write about our accomplishment in verbose ways. Ways in which we spin a tale full of magic keywords to be scanned by a machine in hopes of getting noticed. But, in this age of visualization, we should think about how to present our best work visually. Think of it this way: If you had to post your latest awesome work project on Instagram, what would it look like? For example, my resume says: “Re-inventing CRM by creating a segmented loyalty communications strategy that houses communications in the platform vs. an under-performing email program.” If I am being honest, I say to myself what does that even mean? But, if I took a screenshot of what I came up with, you could see that it was a massive innovation in the loyalty space. My friends in sales talk about this all the time. Their resume talks about how they build relationships with customers to grow business. But what recruiters really want to see from a sales pro is: Did you beat your quota and if so, by how much. When I was selling, I once beat my sales goals by 200%. Therefore, my visual would simply say: 200% of quota. But, it doesn’t and it should. We all make things for work that impact the business, but because we have been in the “tell me” era for so long, we are not used to framing our achievements in the “show me” way. The cool thing is that visualizing your work can do wonders for your career, even if you aren’t looking for a job. What about annual reviews? You could use some of the tools below to create visuals for your accomplishments and then share them with your manager. Chances are, they are not thinking about all the wonderful contributions you’ve made to the company in this way. And it will be easier for them to make the case should a promotion become available. Here are a few tools for you to use to begin visualizing your accomplishments.
