The worst piece of personal branding advice is:
You should review and update your CV and LinkedIn profile every 6 months, regardless of your employment status.
It’s not wrong. In fact, it’s a very, very good idea. But it’s bad advice. Why? Because absolutely nobody does it.
Most of us know we should do it. It’s just easier not to. So we put it off until it’s urgent, then do it all in one big, miserable chore.
Why?
Because we think of our CV and LinkedIn profile as either an embarrassing exercise in braggadocio, or as a functional, box-ticking job that serves only as a reductive and unnecessary middleman between us and our next paycheck.
When did we agree that it has to be like this? That talented, resourceful, intelligent people should write their CV to be as dull and standardised as possible? That CVs and LinkedIn profiles should be buzzword-laden and cliched, no matter how interesting the person behind them really is?
My big question for you is:
What if you approached your CV and LinkedIn profile as a creative project, and set out to make something beautiful and true?
This is the story of your professional life. It’s how you spend most of your waking hours. You don’t need to be in love with your job to experience moments of joy, passion, struggle and success.
That project that consumed you loved so much you worked late into the night. The people you met and are still in touch with now. The little kind thing you did for someone that changed their career forever. These snapshots form a narrative.
Think of your career as a film trailer, a photography exhibition, a poetry anthology, an after-dinner speech – isn’t it suddenly more exciting? More entertaining? More alive?
By bringing that creative energy to your CV and LinkedIn profile, you can not only write something more unique and compelling for any potential readers, but also reap the benefits of engaging in your own narrative construction – you learn more about yourself.
Imagine your career documents as daring act of authentic written expression rather than a necessary evil. Something for you rather than something for a faceless recruitment process. A source of confidence and narrative control.
Is it possible you might even want to update documents like that?
