This LinkedIn update is intended for potential employers.
Since I am currently seeking employment, it is reasonable to expect potential
employers to look here and other places in which I have an online presence.
While much of my writing, research, interests and perhaps a little too much of
my personal life over the last ten years can be found by a simple search of my
name (the top three hits in a recent Google search return my LinkedIn profile,
my blog site and my Facebook profile), there is much more to my story than what
can be found by clicking those links. LinkedIn reveals my basic biographical
information, my blog showcases a specific style of my writing (but requires
much more time to digest than a busy hiring manager has), and my Facebook
profile is largely private unless one is in my “friends” list. But even if it
was all was public, my story, as depicted online, is fragmented, disjointed and
incomplete. This essay cannot even begin to fill in the gaps, but it can offer
some context, it can help put a frame around what many consider to be an
“interesting life;” it is designed to both mitigate any negative preconceptions
as well as promote myself as a hard-working, creative, intelligent, compassionate
and driven asset to any employer.
On October 17th, 2000, I was involved in a
violent head-on collision that nearly took my life. I not only could have died,
according to many, I should have. While I have no clear memory of that incident
almost 15 years ago, I clearly remember regaining consciousness in the hospital
five weeks later. Up until that time, my employment history entailed several
jobs that spanned everything from manual labor to upper management in a Silicon
Valley tech firm. I fixed cars, worked sheet metal, tuned microwave
electronics, developed new products for that tech firm before moving into the
marketing manager position for that same company, built and configured personal
computers, worked as a machinist/model maker and, at the time of my accident, I
was running a cellular phone store when digital cellular was still relatively
new. Experience and specific vocational educational targets, along with
learning my craft as I worked was sufficient to not only secure employment, but
also excel at everything I undertook. My brush with death stopped me in my
tracks and it would be almost three years before I was rehabilitated enough to
begin my life again. I was 40 years old.
I discovered the job market changed in ways that were
completely unfamiliar to me in just three years. For the first time in my life
I was not able to secure employment easily, at will. Indeed, I was not able to
secure it at all. The economy, a three-year gap in my employment history and
the lack of a college degree compelled me to return to college in the fall of
2003. I have been there ever since. In the winter of 2007 I was awarded a BA in
government-journalism from California State University, Sacramento (magna cum laude) and during that time,
in a way that paralleled my former employment opportunities, turned a
journalism internship into a part-time job. While that job was amongst the most
personally rewarding I have ever had, it was not sufficiently financially
rewarding. I decided to go back to school to earn a master’s degree in
communication studies. My plan upon graduation was to secure full-time
employment as a professor while still writing news part-time. I taught at CSUS
while working on my MA, but instead of entering the “real world” upon
completion of my MA, I applied for doctoral programs at several universities. I
accepted an offer from Louisiana State University in the fall of 2011. Until
last June, I was living in Baton Rouge, LA while teaching and studying at LSU.
After four years at LSU, my doctoral coursework is complete.
I plan to have a dissertation ready to defend at some point in 2016. I have
taught hundreds of students at both LSU and CSUS in many of the various arts
and sciences found under the umbrella of “communication studies.” My students
found in me what any potential employer will also find – an individual who
brings a breadth of experience into everything he does. I am equally
comfortable in the classroom, the boardroom and the garage. My forté is not
just the ability to communicate effectively, but to do so with an ethos my
target audience can identify with. Furthermore, through my research – not
specifically what I have researched,
but rather the fact that I have extensive experience with research - I am able
to learn and understand complex ideas quickly and, most importantly, analyze,
synthesize and present those ideas coherently in terms that others can easily
understand.
Finally, it is important to say a few words about not my
words found on the Internet, but my pictures. My profile picture for LinkedIn
is a “head shot” taken by a photographer for Prosper Magazine when I was one of
several student bloggers chosen to cover the Perspectives 2006 event in
Sacramento, CA. While I am dressed professionally, and although I was working in
a professional, albeit unpaid, capacity, some might view my hair style as
anything but professional. It should come as no surprise that I respectfully
disagree; however, I am not blind to the realities of the world. A potential
employer might find this essay compelling, could see my experience –
educational, professional and personal – as a valuable asset to his or her
organization, but might also feel that my appearance is not in line with what
that organization is trying to portray. I’ll be perfectly honest here. I have
had long hair most of my life. I don’t know why, but it seems to be an
extension of my creativity. Having said that, I am not Samson. Cutting my hair
does not in any way diminish who I am, what I can do or my value. If offered a
job, my hair is on the table, so to speak.
Now more than 1,000 words into this work, I would hope that
any potential employer who has read thus far is interested in what I could
bring to any organization. It is
perhaps serendipitous that George Anders’ article in Forbes Magazine, “That 'Useless' Liberal Arts Degree Has Become
Tech's Hottest Ticket,” ran yesterday. I am looking for work; I look forward to
the opportunity to apply my “interesting life” in a meaningful way.
