The Resume Cloud - A Simple Tool With Benefits for Candidates and Recruiters

Welcome back to The Sports Ace!

The below post is co-authored with good friend/great PR mind Lauren Fernandez (@CubanaLAF on Twitter). We hope you enjoy it!

Of course, we all know that a resume can make all the difference for a candidate trying to get that first interview for a job they really want. Conversely, it's also an employer's first look at potential candidates they hope to hire and have contribute to the long-term success of their business. From looking at a resume, reviewers can glean an awful lot of information about a candidate's personality - and essentially sum up their "personal brand" and see if that fits with their company. So how can an employer distill all the resumes they receive into usable, comparable information so that they maximize their chances of hiring the right person? And how can candidates make sure they're putting their best foot forward to distinguish themselves from the competition?

How about using a resume cloud?

This is a take on the popular word cloud tools available on the Internet. If you're unfamiliar with them, they are Web sites which take any word processed document and produce a word cloud from it, which is a scrambled mess of keywords that are commonly found in that particular document. The more times the word is used, the bigger it appears in the cloud. This tool is incredibly useful for identifying the words and phrases that you're using most often - and consequently, that stand the best chance of sticking with whoever reads your writing.

Applied to a resume, this word cloud tool could be incredibly useful to employers so that they can see the common words and themes in a candidate's resume. These words/themes are the foundation of the candidates' brand - so they can simply compare that brand to their company's own culture and brand to see if there's a potential match.

Companies are all about their brand, because that is what is being shown to consumers. They need to validate that your mindset and strengths are aligned with their own, because working in the corporate environment means that you are representing not only your own persona, but a company brand as well.

In much the same way, this tool could be incredibly useful to the candidates as well. By running your resume through a word cloud, you could see how you're representing yourself in your resume and what messages you're conveying about who you are. If you like what you see - if the biggest keywords are in alignment with who you are and what you want the employer to see from you, then we think you can submit confidently for that job. On the other hand, if you feel the biggest words do not speak well to who you are and what you want in your next position, then your resume may need some revision.

Word clouds can also be beneficial to the candidate that needs to see what their strengths and weaknesses are – because sometimes they aren’t as apparent to the busy individual who is constantly going. It is also a great way to re-evaluate why you might not have received a call for an interview, especially if you compare the keywords with what are most prominent on the company Web site and news stories about the brand.

It never hurts to pay attention to the exact messages you've sending to those who you may want to work for, and on the employer side, it never hurts to do your due diligence to see whether or not someone will be a good long-term fit with your organization. A resume cloud, we think, could be a very effective tool for both groups. A job opportunity can be viewed as a marriage – both the employer and employee are making a vow to put the brand in the most positive light possible.

Some word cloud Web sites to get you started:

Wordle: http://www.wordle.net/
Tocloud: http://www.tocloud.com/

Thoughts/comments welcome!

Sports Market Audit: Seattle

Welcome back to The Sports Ace, where March Madness is back in full force. Oh, how we missed it.

I just had the idea to start using some blog posts to take a look at interesting sports markets around the nation, and the latest news/trends/topics coming from them. For my first Sports Market Audit, I'd like to take a trip to the Pacific Northwest and visit one of my all-time favorite cities: The Emerald City herself, Seattle. As any area regular will tell you, when the sun is out, there are few places more beautiful on earth. But when it rains, well, it's downright gloomy.

To put it nicely, Seattle is in one of those rainy periods when it comes to its sports life. The Sonics packed up and moved. The Washington Huskies suffered through their worst football season in school history last fall (although their mens' basketball team just won the Pac 10 regular season title). The Mariners lost 101 games in 2008, and I'm not convinced the return of Ken Griffey Jr. will lead to better things for the local nine this year. And let's not forget the Seahawks, who fought injuries and finished 4-12 in the worst division in the NFL.

But, for me, here's the real kicker (no pun intended): the Seattle Sounders FC, the city's new MLS (that's Major League Soccer, for the uninitiated TSA readers) franchise, is not just competing well with the Mariners for sponsorships and season ticket sales - they're waxing the floor with them. Check out this interesting piece from the Puget Sound Business Journal.

Hmmm. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to argue that one league or one sport is better than another in this post. But how in the world does an expansion franchise in a fledgling soccer league from a city and surrounding region not exactly known as a soccer hotbed trounce quite possibly the most established player on the scene? Allow me to offer some potential reasons:

• Just win, baby. The Mariners lost 101 games last year. The Sounders didn't lose any. In today's "What have you done for me lately?" world of professional sports, consider this a statement about which team area fans think will compete better in 2009.
• Novelty. They're the new game in town, and people/organizations want to try it on and see how it fits. Nothing wrong with that.
• Winners prefer to associate with other winners. The Seattle area is home to several industry-leading businesses - the short list includes Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, etc. They all consider themselves winners in their chosen "game," and they want that hard-earned brand of theirs to align with similar winning brands. At this stage of the game, the Sounders have more of a winning brand than the Mariners.
• Marketing ROI. Fans follow winning teams more than losing ones - ticket sales are higher, mindshare is greater, etc. So naturally a company's marketing investment in two otherwise equal teams generates greater ROI with the one that wins more. Simple as that.
• Urban marketing/branding. This soccer franchise represents a new beginning for the Seattle sports marketplace, which has a bit of a black eye after losing the Sonics to Oklahoma City. Civic, business, community and other leaders in the city and region need the Sounders to succeed in order to prove/reinforce that the Seattle marketplace can continue to be a viable one for sports and broader business in the coming years and decades. They also desperately want to boost civic pride and show people across America that Seattle remains a major player on the national scene. So they've clearly chosen to invest in trying to make their new team a success. It's uncanny sometimes how closely a city's sports teams embody and reflect that city's vibe and brand...so I think you can look at this as a marketing investment by the people and businesses of Seattle in their city's long-term viability and relevance.

So what does this say about the state of sports in Seattle? I can't blame folks there for trying to see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel when it comes to their teams. But I think this shows just how desperate fans there are for a winner and a fresh start - and how badly sponsors and other corporate partners there want to be associated with a winning product. Time will tell whether the Sounders can deliver or not.

I'm out like all those Big East bubble teams from the NCAA tournament.