Thank you for being my friend (and referral)

This short note is my small way of saying thank you to all my friends. Or more specifically, to all my friends that have helped me stay employed over the past three years.

See, when you’re working as a freelance consultant, your next paycheck is never guaranteed. Most freelancers I know spend almost as much time looking for new gigs as they do working for their current clients. The benefits of self-employment are great, but you’ve got to go in expecting that you’re going to be working for many more hours than you’re actually billing out to your clients.

Me? I’ve been lucky.

Most of my clients have come to me through referrals. When you’ve got other people speaking on your behalf, it drastically reduces the time you spend looking for new work.

To all of you that have been Sameer Vasta evangelists over the past three years, thank you for saving my sanity — and my social life.

The peer referral is often as, if not more, important than the client referral — particularly when the person referring you is in the same industry. It says a lot when a peer can turn around and tell a client, “I can’t do that for you right now, but I know someone that can.”

In a recent article on peer referrals on Web Worker Daily, Jenneth Orantia writes:

Peers aren’t going to risk tarnishing their reputation by recommending someone whose work they’re not familiar with.

Giving a peer referral implies a large amount of trust, and I really appreciate everyone that has trusted me enough to sing my praises from time to time.

I’m trying to return the favor in any way possible. One way is by spreading the good word in person, but another is by recommending people and services on GigPark. (If you’re not using GigPark yet, go sign up now, I’ll wait here until you get back.) If I’m already your biggest fan and I haven’t recommended you just yet, let me know and I’ll fix that oversight.

Thank you again to everyone that has been my friend and my referral all rolled into one. I owe you dinner.

Special thanks to the always-awesome Connie Crosby who was influential in helping me score my most recent gig.

Seth Godin, I have and use a resume

For a span of two or three years, I didn’t update my resume once. All the employment opportunities that came my way were filtered through word-of-mouth and potential employers were able to review my work and credentials through my blog and web presence.

So when Seth Godin recently wrote his post entitled Why bother having a resume? and claimed that remarkable people don’t need resumes, I was ready to wholeheartedly agree. After all, as Seth says:

A resume is an excuse to reject you. Once you send me your resume, I can say, “oh, they’re missing this or they’re missing that,” and boom, you’re out.

Recently, however, I’ve learned that a resume is not only a good thing to have, but still almost necessary when searching for a job.

There are still several companies and organizations that require a resume in order to apply for certain positions. To people like Seth, those “average jobs” in the “corporate behemoth” might be worthy of derision, but to many of us still starting out in our respective industries they are learning opportunities and chances to build experience that makes us all the more remarkable.

I won’t argue that having a resume is the best way to be recruited: truly spectacular people will have projects, blogs, and portfolios that accentuate their talents. Having a resume, however, is a good way to get those projects, blogs, and portfolios noticed by people who aren’t usually in the habit of looking at those things.

Because of that, I have and use a resume. It’s not the only tool in my employability arsenal, but it’s a good first move when necessary.