JobSeek©

In 1993 (my last year at Purdue University just beginning to seek employment) sending out slides of my portfolio was an expensive proposition for a student on a tight budget. I decided there had to be a better way for self promotion. I was also faced with trying to break into a market that I had very little job experience in. Since I wanted to get a job as a multimedia/game designer, I was inspired to create something that would deliver my portfolio slides along with promoting my skills. It also had to be portable and small enough to fit onto a single 1.4MB HD diskette. Necessity being the mother of invention, the idea of JobSeek was born. So, I set about purchasing and learning Macromedia Director, which at the time in 1992 was the most popular multimedia authoring tool available. I had no idea that what I was attempting to do was in fact the first of its kind!

I broke it down into three areas: Resumé, Contact and Portfolio. I used a combination of vector illustration, 3D and Photoshop to create it. Also included were animations, looping background audio and sound effects, very reminiscent of the burgeoning CD-ROM market in the early 90's. JobSeek allowed prospective employers to scroll through my portfolio and resume to get an idea of my abilities. Also included were popular interview questions with my responses. The end result was that it enabled companies to make a hiring consideration based on this, typically followed up by an interview in person. Since I designed it to fit (compressed) on a single HD diskette it enabled me to mail it out to roughly 50 interactive media companies around the US.

What followed was the most amazing career high thrill ride I could ever have dreamed of! It went viral before that was even a term and received over 30 job offers worldwide! This was 1994 before the internet was a big deal and also used CompuServe and AOL as a means of distribution. It eventually caught the attention of Macromedia who used it as one of its customer success stories in their keynote and eventually appeared on the front page of USA Today on Sep 29, 1994. Soon after that I was asked to be on Good Morning America  but that was scrapped since news related to the ongoing Persian Gulf War aired instead. Honestly I was relieved as the attention I was getting was a bit crazy. Even though it's dated by today's standards, it more than met my goals of what I designed it to do and opened many doors to my career.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any successful Mac emulators to bring it back to life. So, for now it remains alive only as images and an artifact of the glorious 90's and its contributions to the digital ephemera of that era... not to mention a great career!