Yay, it works. They apparently found me through google or a passed along link, found my profile at http://resumelink.org/aaronevans and used it to contact me. Only one problem though:

They asked me to email them my resume.

First up is the largest online social network, Facebook. Users can now have a “like” button on their resumelink profile. Of course you can also like (become a fan of) resumelink too. Just click the “like” button on the bottom of the page at resumelink.org

We have a new page describing the facebook features. It has an activity feed of what’s happing with resumelink in facebook land.

Go to http://resumelink.org/facebook for more information.

The next level is to be able to post your resumelink on your facebook profile and allow other users to like, comment, or give you referrals on your facebook home page.

We will also be rolling out single sign-in with your facebook account very soon.

I made a few mistakes with her resume (which was uploaded in RTF format) and she kindly let me know:

First I want to say thank you for such an awesome site.
This is a great idea and the future of resumes. I can’t wait to use it. With
that said, there were some characters added to the top of my resume.
Also I asked for larissalong instead of larissa-long. Is there
something I need to do differently? Thanks!

With such sugar-coated criticism, how could I help but fix the problem? Our resume conversion process isn’t bulletproof by any means (in fact it’s a somewhat manual process still) but I hope to make it better and eventually allow people to edit their own resumes and profile information. For now, if you have a problem, please let me know. We want to keep our users happy.

Like I told Larissa:

Resumelink is a brand new service so we’ve got a lot of kinks to
work out, and I appreciate your feedback…Please let me know if
there’s anything else we can do to make your resumelink better.
And tell your friends!

I know her resume conversion still isn’t perfect, but she replied:

Thanks for the response. I do plan on telling my friends about this.
I think this is where technology is heading. Thanks for fixing my
link, I have posted it to my online portfolio.

I sure hope this is where technology is headed. While I won’t always be able to manually tweak people’s resumes to get all the different formats correct (MS Word Doc, Adobe PDF, HTML, and plain text) I hope to be able to minimise glitches and give users the tools they need. In the meantime, early adopters feel free to take advantage of me.

Besides bug reports, I’d love to hear feature requests. I hope to have user profiles working at a basic level by the end of the month.

I want to develop it in an agile manner and start with a very basic feature set, but rapidly add features.  This is a challenge for design, since I do not want to deteriorate the design or hamper usability; yet at the same time make new features easy to discover.

The primary goal of the business is to acquire users, and become the site for personal resumes.  I want someone to be able to say over the phone with a prospective employer “my resumelink is …” and they’ll know exactly what they’re talking about.

The secondary goal is to make it easy to find the right resume with a simple web search.  If you search for “Aaron Evans resume” or “Software Tester Seattle” I want my resume to be at the top of the search results for all the major search engines.  SEO will be an important factor.

The tertiary goal is to build a community around job seekers who can help and encourage each other by offering advice on their job search, resume critique, and potentially referrals.  I want to build a social network to this effect, and leverage existing social networks.

The revenue model will be add supported / freemium with additional services for employers & recruiters.  Registered users will be allowed to choose not to see ads and premium users will not have ads shown to others who view their resume.

To acquire users I need to have resumelink rank high on search results for “online resume” and related terms.  I will also purchase ads to help drive users.

Word of mouth will also be instrumental in spreading the word, and I plan to use social networks, blogging, and personal connections to achieve this.  Recruiting an experienced job search professional with social media experience who can be the online face of resumelink by writing articles and blog posts, and connecting with others via social networks and personal connections will be an important step.

Getting users to upload their resume is key to establishing credibility and momentum.  A good design is critical to establish user trust and willingness to represent themselves on Resumelink.  The process should be as easy as possible with no roadblocks and no hesitation.  A simple, streamlined UI and clearly stated, user rights and terms are important for this.

Simplicity of use and user control will be the selling points.

I have a partnership that should bring in a few thousand initial resumes.  For new users, personal referral will be even more important than direct discovery (e.g. via search & targeted marketing)

http://demo.venturebeat.com/2010/04/22/demo-seattle-pitch-madrona-venture-group

Hello [blank],

I am from [unheard of company with stock art photo on website] staffing company. I came across your resume through Monster/Dice. We currently have requirement for position with our direct client [undisclosed] which your resume is a good match. Kindly go through job description below.

Please indicate you accept us represent you for this position by call me at right away at [foreign number].

To this:

You: “Hey John, I love [cool company]. I saw on your website that you have a job listed that I’d be a great fit for.”

John [hiring manager at cool company]: “What’s your resumelink?”

Check it out winning design by b99 (#78) and all the entries at 99designs.

Thanks to everyone who contributed a design.  Special thanks to b99 who put up with all my vague and ever-changing requests.

Now I just need to decide on either the white or black background, and the “hook” or “flower” logo.  Your feedback is welcome.

Unfortunately, I have too much stuff, and I don’t know where to put it all, but with some AJAX, brutal editing, and small fonts, I should be able to get most of it on the front page.

Here’s the mockup with content without a home on the right of the ads

Resumelink home page mockup

Now we’re down to #8, just barely on the first page.

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if maybe there have been a few maneuvers from people who have read my blog. The idea has definitely struck a chord.

Or maybe it’s just Google punishing me for badmouthing adsense.

Whatever it is, I definitely have a lot to learn about SEO. There’s more than putting quality content up there to being well ranked on a search engine.

(Not that I have a lot of quality content yet, that’s why I need to hire a media manager. Did I mention that it’s a paying job? Bonus points if you know about SEO.)

There’s a lot I need to do but check it out:

http://resumelink.org/aaronevans