Everyone knows that the long-sought diploma is the most important document on graduation day. But what about the next day? And next month? And years and decades throughout a career?

One word: resume.

Long after the treasured diploma is hanging on a wall, that resume will be doing heavy lifting on the career end of things.

It’ll be passed from hand to hand and from computer to computer, across oceans and continents. It’ll be endlessly updated, printed, scanned, forwarded, uploaded, posted, emailed and even snail mailed.

For some graduates, that process will go on for the rest of their lives.

More and more resumes are paperless. Instead, they’ve become digital documents, or video or multimedia presentation. Time after time, the vital content will be used — mostly by strangers — to critique, evaluate and make critical decisions about graduates’ careers and lives.

Your Personal Brand

The resume is at the core of another career concept: branding, displaying the essence of one’s professional character at a glance – skills, experience, knowledge, abilities, ambitions, drive and much more.

It’s the story of you, available in the global marketplace.

All this is why Stetson career advisors say that no graduate should leave the university without a resume so well crafted, so impeccably polished and so uniquely powerful that it opens doors and opportunities to dreams of success and significance.

Stetson’s Career and Professional Development staff helps students do just that. Seniors Jack Stautberg and Duncan Dowling say advisors there are driven to help every student succeed. Both worked closely with John Sheehy, one of the department’s veteran career advisors.

“They’ve given me tools and tips on how to succeed in every step of the job searching process,” said Stautberg, a finance major. “Without their advice I would not be as well prepared as I am today.” Whatever job Stautberg lands, he said, it will be because of career development’s help.

Dowling agrees.

“Without his guidance and advice I’d probably be that senior who is currently freaking out about graduation in less than 80 days,” said a confident Dowling, an accounting major. “But I have my plan for post graduation.”

“Even if someone thinks their resume is flawless,” said Stautberg, “career development staff will find improvements.”

Essential tips, tools and resources relating to resumes and careers are available on the department’s web site. Throughout the year, it produces career-related events to boost students’ career-building skills.

Hunting and Being Hunted: LinkedIn

Hard-copy resumes, face-to-face interviews and personal connections cannot be minimized, advisors say, but the job-hunting landscape is changing rapidly and radically. More and more, it’s an online world.

“Electronic forums such as LinkedIn are tremendously important in today’s market,” said Robin Kazmarek, associate director of Career Services. LinkedIn will be the focus of a program Sheehy will present for all Stetson students at 5:15 p.m., Mar. 17 in the Rinker Auditorium in Lynn Business Center.

“More than four million companies have pages on LinkedIn and over 332 million users from over 200 countries have individual accounts,” Kazmarek said, quoting recent research.

“It’s the number one job resource in the world right now,” Sheehy said, noting that 80 percent of employers use LinkedIn to screen applicants.

Social networking’s powers are well known to today’s students, said Tim Stiles, executive director of Career and Professional Development.

“For better or worse, students have been socially branding themselves since they joined Facebook or Twitter as elementary or middle schoolers,” said Stiles. “The difference is that college is where they evolve into professionally branding oneself, starting as early as the freshman year.

“The sooner they make this transition the better,” he said.

For more information on advice and services offered by Stetson’s Career and Professional Development office, call 386-822-7315 or email [email protected]. Visit the office in Flagler Hall, room 100, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

by Ronald Williamson