Work That We Do, Sublime

Defining Life Experience: The LinkedIn Dilemma

Soon before college graduation, my father sent me an excited email.  “You are almost a college graduate.  How does your LinkedIn profile look?”  With my father’s guidance, I updated my profile, combining the pride of my resume with the online ease of Facebook.  As I navigated my changing employment opportunities, I quickly learned how to operate my LinkedIn, updating and adding new jobs, experience and technical skills as they happened.

My parents enjoy being “tech savvy”, my Mom with her Facebook (and email, and ipad, and macbook) and my dad with his LinkedIn.  While my Mom rarely posts to the ‘book, she is a professional “Facebook stalker”.  When living in the states, periodically I would get phone calls: “Annie, did you hear so-and-so is pregnant?  Do you know who the father is?”

“Mom, I’m at work, can we talk when I get home?”

“Yeah, baby, I just wanted to let you know.  She’s pregnant!  Wasn’t she on your student council or something?”

“No, but baby daddy was,” and I would hang up.

My father uses his social networking experience for something completely different.  One night, coming home from my first post-grad job, my dad told me to get my computer.  “Let’s get you a LinkedIn.”

We spent the next hour, hunched over my laptop, figuring out what work experience goes where and how to define my personal experience and eventually, I gave up.  “Dad, I’ll look at it when I have free time at work.”

And so I did.  Now, I am now fairly LinkedIn savvy.  That’s one of my favorite parts about this generation: give us enough time with something technological, we’ll figure it out.  Kind of like how we all knew to blow on gameboy games when they started skipping.

My resume has always been a point of pride.  I have at least three copies on my computer currently – the one with every little bit of experience (now including the Peace Corps KSAs – Knowledge, Skill, Aptitude), the one I turned into the Peace Corps, and one that is easily adaptable for quick review.  I update it regularly, with every little thing I can include.  But after a week in Panama City, with real internet, I tried to update my LinkedIn account in the same way.  Here is the dilemma:

Peace Corps experience is almost in-definable.  Yes, there are many tangibles – successful recycling project, endangered species management work, Spanish language fluency – but where the problem lies is in the intangibles.  I convince a group of people to try a new approach to something; gardening, income generation or cooking, but what do I call that?  I can build a more energy efficient outdoor stove (fogon), but in the States, when will I need to do that?  I can facilitate a meeting full of angry poachers and angrier protection activists in my second language, but does that have a name?

More than half of my Peace Corps experience is barely definable in the first world, and can only be summed up in the , PCV behind my name.  Those three letters mean all the things I can’t otherwise define.  This generation of young adults are quickly becoming known as the Global Generation.  Most of us have passports, and a significant number have lived abroad.  Our work – and life – experience are so different from our predecessors and it’s still being defined.  To us, work and life are intertwined to a point that our resumes should include all of it.  “Lived in Rome for 2 months in a hostel”, “Tended bar while studying for the bar”, “Played guitar and sang in the subway in Spain”, “Made jewelry out of recycled materials”, “Composted in my backyard in the middle of a city” or “Had a mini herb garden on the two foot balcony of my apartment”.  All of these should be included on our resumes, in our LinkedIn accounts, but where?

When will “Life Experience” be a standard subheading on a resume?