If you want to telecommute, and who doesn’t, your resume could be one of the most important documents to support that transition.
By now, we thought we’d all have computer glasses or chip implants so that we’d all be working from home or coffee shops or the beach. My business partner and I have engineered our business so that we are 100% virtual and mobile, and can do that, but we own the business. Those who are still getting a paycheck with someone else’s signature on it aren’t so fortunate.
Telecommuting declined between 2008 and 2010 to everyone’s surprise. Joyce Gioia, Strategic Business Futurist, and others who do that sort of predicting had thought that the 61% increase between 2005 and 2009 of people who considered home their primary place of work would continue.
What happened? Most employers must see workers working before they believe it.
Although 80% of employees say they’d like to telework, and the technology is accessible, reasonable, and easy to use, most companies simply don’t have enough trust that their workers would actually work. It could also be that they don’t have the processes in place to determine productivity, either.
“It takes measuring performance and productivity, rather than when, where, or how employees work. In the future, offering workshifting will not be optional. To attract the best and the brightest talent, employers will simply have to “get over it” and focus on desired results,” Gioia said.
Those results are important to you right now, as well. Keep track of your own results on your resume. Make it a living document. If you want to telecommute, be ready for the opportunity. Have the results of your work available for your employer to see.
How will you do that? Read the Experience section of your resume and ask yourself these questions:
- Does this describe what I do or what results from what I do?
- Does this tell my employer what value I bring to the company?
- Can I make a good argument for my salary (or a higher one) from what is in my resume?
- Do I feel proud of my accomplishments as written in my resume?
If your honest answer to these questions is no, then contact me at jeri@workwrite.net, so we can talk about what needs to change in your resume. You may be able to work wherever you want to!
