CVs - a necessary evil? Thoughts on LinkedIn - the future of career networking.

So.... a lesson about CVs.... this felt a little like well mapped ground, as they were covered in the core module last year, and I felt even then that the teaching was unsuprisingly aimed at students with little employment history which was a little irrelevent to the 'mature' students among us.  Yet another example of the pitfalls of structuring a lesson to the masses, rather than differentiating to the individual needs of the students.  Though I do understand why it needs to be done, and that the older students are in a minority.

It was useful to ask some questions, and to review my CV, which is always a laborious job.  I noted that I should be including some details like GCSE subjects depending on their relevence, and that I could update the format of my personal interest section, turning a block of prose into a more digestable list of points.

One ot the most interesting things to come up in our discussion was the relevence of the now slightly archaic CV, when so much of our lives are documented online.  linkedIn, a site which I had only vaguely heard about turns out to be the up and coming proffesional networking site, and it was argued that a good linkedIn profile can double as, and in some cases superceed the CV.

I have now made a LinkedIn profile... accesable here if anyone is interested

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=219904021&trk=tab_pro

........Though I still have a lot to add to it. 

So far it seems like an utterly good idea, though as I have a variety of interests and plural career possabilities, I'm not sure if I will be able to adapt it entirely to my needs.

My main problem with LinkedIn is that it's online
And public.

I know.  I'm living in the dark ages.

Even this Blog, which I know is a useful reflective exercise, petrifies me because it feels like a public platform, a soapbox if you will that I am encouraged to use to shout about my feelings and experiences to the world.  It's not like that.  I know this.  But it still makes me panic.

I wonder whether I am alone in this; as a writer, I am incredably protective of my drafts.  I hate to show them to people until I am moderately happy with them, and those are people I know and trust.  The idea of sharing my personal opinions with the whole of the internet is, frankly, mindboggling. It's been hard. To write this without fear of consiquence.  I use facebook, but I am as privite as I can be, I make few posts, comunicate via privite messages, I am always acutely aware of an audience.  It's a version, I suppose, of Alvin Toffler's future shock, technology advancing faster than I can comprehend, horizons broadening.  And yet, it's the way thay things are going.  It will be commonplace (if it isn't already) for employers to evaluate an applicant's internet profiles.  And the whole writing business works on interpersonal relationships.  Social networking is the future.  I've just got to give in to it.  LinkedIn, here I come!

This Blog is an important feat in my personal developmment, making me challenge my personal fears and get something out there - and proving that the internet is vast, and that not many people really read it!