For about a month I’ve been part of a social media platform called Somewhere, and I don’t regret it at all because it’s the perfect companion piece for LinkedIn. Like LinkedIn it’s a professional, social network but with one, key difference: it isn’t about outdoing your peers professionally, or trying to put your best “professional” foot forward it’s about something much deeper than that. Although LinkedIn is a great networking tool/ electronic resume tool it leaves very little room for answering a few, key questions:
- Besides the fact you have “X” amount of experience in a specific field, and an expensive degree or two what makes you different than your peers?
- What motivates the work you do?
- What caused you to walk the path you’re walking today?
- What’s your overall, life philosophy and passions?
- What about the “you” outside your work hours? What are they like?
- etc…
Although some of these questions sometimes come up on LinkedIn, LinkedIn encourages the CV/ resume “you,” which is only a small portion of the overall picture, rather than the entire story, of the “you,” from morning to night, facing whatever challenges, accomplishments, and everyday routines that life typically throws in your direction.
LinkedIn’s electronic resume format is a great way to apply for a job, or showcase your credibility but it’s refusing to address the fact that there’s a 50% chance that someone will look great on paper, but look not so great, once you give them a chance. In order to demonstrate what I mean by that I’m going to tell you about something that happened at a summer job I had once. The woman that was hired to do the same job as me, turned out to have a bad attitude and be clueless at social interactions, while rubbing everyone the wrong way, despite the fact she had a stellar resume, made the Dean’s List multiple times, and could speak multiple languages. This is why I love Somewhere. You can figure out who people really are, via a straight-forward, Q&A format, while networking with bright people, in similar industries. You can also read, and contribute opinions on, a variety of intellectually stimulating topics, that loosely revolve around work, the future of work, long term goals, after hours pursuits/philosophical beliefs, etc.
Somewhere is turning out to be one of the best social media networking tools I’ve ever signed up for but I don’t think I’d go as far as to say it’s “better” than all the other social media platforms. Every job, even freelancing often has hundreds, sometimes thousands of eager candidates, and all it takes is proof that someone has some sort of quality that makes them “different” than everyone else to make the decision process easier.
The real reason why I love Somewhere so much is that I like going beyond the resume version of a person way more than judging their qualities based on a piece of paper. There’s so much that a resume will never show about who you’re dealing with, and I don’t actually think job interviews are enough to scratch below the surface. People take time to peel back all their layers, and being part of that gradual unravelling process is truly special, which is why I have no desire, whatsoever, to ever work in HR. I have a lifetime fascination with people, and what motivates them to behave the way they do, because there’s so much more to life than the corporate ladder.
