Earlier today, I saw a post on Threads about a woman who was afraid she was about to be laid off at a meeting tomorrow. Everyone commenting on her post encouraged her to quickly gather anything on her computer that she would need for future interviews. It reminded me of some of the best advice I’ve been given. When I was a undergrad, one of my PR professors told us to “Always keep your resume and portfolio up to date.”1 Her rationale:
You never know when you will get an opportunity for an interview. Sometimes, even when you are not looking for a job, an unexpected opportunity might present itself. Be ready.
You never know when you will get laid off. PR firms and ad agencies have a tendency to reduce staff when they lose clients. Be prepared.
You will forget important details. Will you remember what projects you worked on? Volunteer work that you did? Don’t trust your memory.
It’s incredibly awkward to reach out to an old job to get samples for your portfolio. And if you didn’t leave on good terms, it may be impossible to get samples. Think ahead.
This advice has stuck with me for decades. When I was a designer and creative director, I updated my InDesign resume document, physical portfolio and online portfolio frequently, even though I changed jobs rarely. I was always ready, just in case the right opportunity came along.
Now that I’m mostly an academic, I keep my Curriculum Vitae (CV) up to date here on my personal website. In fact, I updated it last week after I presented at an academic conference. I like having my CV2 on my personal website. It’s basically the master document summarizing my career and experience, and it is easy for me to share a link with people immediately. I also try to keep a subset of my experience updated on my LinkedIn profile, even though I don’t spend a lot of time over there.
Anyway, I think it’s good advice for anyone to keep a resume or CV up-to-date, preferably on your own website. You just never know when you will need it. And I hope that women on Threads doesn’t get laid off.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
I swear I’ve written about this before, but I can’t find it anywhere. ↩︎
A resume tends to be a short 1-2 page summary of work experience, while a CV includes pretty much everything and can be as long as it needs to be. My CV is a hybrid of a traditional CV and a resume. ↩︎
I got to attend a panel discussion today with four of my favorite former classmates who’ve all finished their doctorates and are all doing amazing things as professors. It was so good to see them all together. Felt just like being around the seminar table with them again.
I saw a Ferrari SUV at Publix the other day and went to Ferrari’s website to see what it was. (It was a Purosangue.)
Now I’m getting ads on social media for Ferrari of Charlotte. They may want to add some income parameters to that ad retargeting. 🤣
I asked the barista which one of the new Fall special drinks she liked.
After a long pause, she replied “Well, my dad likes the Jack-O-Latern.”
I feel so old. Also, the drink is great…
Landed the best table at the local coffee shop. A window seat plus outlets for charging.
At a football game in rural South Carolina and the band’s halftime show is Dungeon and Dragons themed.
“When you are losing money, you can’t make it up in volume.”
A seasoned insurance executive told me this once, explaining why we were abandoning a project we had spent significant time and money on. I think about this sometimes when I see financials for some of these AI companies.
I like Snickers. I like Banana Nut Bread. I like limited edition candy. We’ll see if I like this.
Sometimes, I wonder how people would feel about AI if the initial LLM hype was framed as “This is going to make a 30-hour work week possible.” Instead they went with “This is going to cause massive unemployment and maybe destroy the world.”
I always love when the backup quaterback comes in and kicks ass. Case Keenum has had quite the game for da Bears tonight.
I attended a conference this week and one of the speakers spoke about the ethics of AI. He did so in way that I felt was very thoughtful and considered. I won’t attempt to summarize details of his whole talk, but one of the things he encouraged was to develop your own personal philosophy when it comes to AI. What uses are acceptable to you, and what lines will you not cross? Funny enough, I’d added a section to my “About Bob” page that essentially outlined my philosophy under the heading “What is your stance on AI?”:
I do not use large language models (LLMs) to write posts on bobwertz.com or any of my sites. I’m also strongly opposed to using generative AI imagery. I believe that LLMs were largely trained on creative materials without permission, and as such, they are remixing stolen intellectual property. Also, in general, AI imagery sucks. I’m an artist and I can draw it myself. I use an AI feature of Micro.Blog to add alt descriptions to my pictures. The computer is better at describing the image than I am, and I feel like having alt tags on my website is important. I also use the ChatGPT service my university provides to assist with simple coding and troubleshooting.
I’m happy with this as a start. For me, I’m hesitant to throw AI at everything, but I can’t deny that in some situations, AI is helpful. I’m concerned about the environmental impact, but I’m just as concerned about the intellectual property theft. As systems uses less resources and as new models are (hopefully) ethically trained, my opinions might shift. We’ll see…
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
Last night, my son asked me to help him with a problem on his physics homework. I solved the problem in an unconventional way using geometry, but I solved it correctly. Completely baffled him. This morning, he had notecards prepared to tell me how we were supposed to solve it. He also got 106 on his physics quiz today and I remembered some of the trigonometry that I’ve long forgotten. So I guess we both learned something.
I’m always amused that one of the first things I ever designed — a poster from 1996 promoting the University of South Carolina’s Homecoming events – is framed and displayed on the third floor of the Russell House student union with other Homecoming Posters from over the years.
I’m currently writing my dissertation on the factors that shape new logo reactions… and I’m going to have to add a few paragraphs about this McLaren redesign.
I enjoyed this blog post about why people should have personal web sites, and not just rely on social media for their online presence:
What I like about personal websites is not only that the content can vary from person to person. The entire website can.
I need to spend some time getting ready for comps so I took the day off and I’m working from one of my favorite coffee shops in town, Loveland. I’ve lucky to have such an awesome independent coffee shop near my house, but even more lucky that I got one of the awesome window seats.
Marcin Wichary shared his design bookshelf, complete with a loupe to let you enlarge and explore. Click on a book for more info. Such a fun way to do this. (I even found some books to add to my reading list.)
