Last weekend I decided to break free of the standard boring job résumé or CV and express my job history in the Atom syndication format complete with audio enclosures. Syndication geeks may appreciate the implementation details.
I used the published and updated dates to represent my start and end dates. My first day on the job seems like a good match for the published element’s intended use as the “time of the initial creation or first availability” and my last day on the job is the last time the entry was “modified in a significant way” or updated. Since updated is a required entry element and I am currently employed at Technorati the time of my job’s initial creation and last significant modification are the same and my most recent entry contains identical values for published and created
I used link relationships of “related” to specify further reading material such as a more in-depth text version of my résumé or my blog homepage. I created categories to match keyword searches or job classifications by an aggregator.
I much prefer a conversation to a set of bullet points so I decided to spice up the podcast with some audio content summarizing my responsibilities and accomplishments at various companies. All summaries are less than two minutes and correlate with the extended version of my résumé. I added iTunes duration to indicate the length of each podcast.
A final step was the addition of geographical coordinates for location-based searches.
Job aggregation sites may be able to used standardized formats such as Atom to make job listings and work history available to a larger set of users. I just did it for fun as a way for the résumé format to be a little less dull.