More than ever we are surrounded by the need to showcase ourselves online. Whether it’s by having our resume always accessible via basic sites such as LinkedIn, or pushing to make sure we’re always on the newest and more intriguing sites out there. Lately I’ve been doing a fair amount of review by trying out a some of the myriad of sites out there. There are new ones every day, some more versatile and others leaning toward artistic.

Obviously there are the basic sites we all know about. You’ve got Twitter, and Facebook, and I mentioned LinkedIn already. But now there are more and more options out there. One of the sites I appreciate, as it provides an easy way to manage your online presence, is about.me. This provides you with a basic page you can create for yourself, that allows you to give a brief biography as well as provide many basic links to where you interact online. You can find my about.me page at about.me/rbergstad.

The most prevalent increases seem to be for those in programming/web and software development or graphic design. There have already been sites online such as DeviantArt, which allow graphic designers a way to showcase their goods. There are also tons of options out there for programmers, when it comes to showing off their skills. They can answer questions on forums, such as posts to stackoverflow or provide opensource code on sites such as github.

Recently there were two new options blogged about on Silicon Florist: Vizify and Path.to. I checked them out and created profiles. You can check me out on my Vizify profile and my Path.to Profile. They both offer unique ways of presenting yourself to your professional community.

I enjoy them both; I think Vizify adds a little more to the experience. If you were looking at tons of different applicant overviews using it, it might get to be a bit much. It’s a great way to present yourself at a glance though. Path.to is nicer because it allows for you to see what jobs match not only your skill set but also your prefered work environment. I do wonder, however, with all these new alternatives to LinkedIn how things will play out?