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Wiki Wisdom: Adding Wiki Experience to Your Resume

Meighan October 17, 2011
Add your wiki skills to your resume
MeighanAdded by Meighan
We see users offering help and support in a variety of ways all over Wikia — through editing, comments, forums, etc. Blogs are an especially great way to offer guidance to the community. It's always inspiring to stumble upon blogs where users have taken a moment to share their experience or knowledge so that other users can learn from them. What better way to acknowledge these blog posts than to highlight them in a guest blog series called "Wiki Wisdom" on Founder & Admin Central?

To kick off our very first installment, we're spotlighting a blog post by Tagaziel (The Vault, Command & Conquer wiki, S.T.A.L.K.E.R wiki, Prototype wiki), who wrote a very insightful and sharp piece about translating skills one learns and does on wikis to "Volunteer Experience" on your CV or resume. (You can see the original blog post here.)

Sannse originally called this blog to my attention and it struck a personal note; I started fiddling around online in 2005 and have since turned that into a career. I did exactly what Tagaziel highlights here — I added the many skills I learned along the way and put them on a resume.

Read below to learn about Tagaziel's advice on how to translate your experience online into professional experience in the workplace:

Your Wikia Experience and CVsEdit

It has occured to me lately, as I've been filling out job applications, that my experience in administrating Wikia wikis could be translated into an entry on my CV.

Question is, how would it be done?

A curriculum vitae (CV) or resume needs to contain all of your job experience that might be relevant to the job you're applying for. If you've been contributing to and administrating wikis for the past, say, four years, then you've surely accumulated a decent amount of experience and know-how.

Now, it's a question of translating all that into an entry on your CV/resume.

The basic question is: where to place the appropriate heading? Simple. All Wikia-related experience should be placed under the Volunteer Experience or Other Exprience headings.

Now, to formulate this experience: The company name is Wikia, Inc.. The Inc. is really, really important, as it designates the legal form in which Wikia operates.

Underneath, write the length of time you've been a Wikia contributor. At the present, your registration date is displayed on your user page or in Special:Preferences.

Now, forgive me for indulging myself, but I'll give you an example CV entry, using me, myself and I as subject:

OTHER EXPERIENCE
Wikia, Inc.
June 2007 - present
Volunteer administrator
Responsibilites: Content editing, copy editing and maintenance, community management, website management and maintenance (cnc.wikia.com, stalker.wikia.com)

Here comes the hard part. Summarizing your experience and the key skills you've learned and are practicing. This should fall under Responsibilities (see sample above). It is tempting to just put in "Website Management" and be done with it, but trust me, that could make your potential employer ignore that entry. You need to be specific and brief.

Are you primarily hunting grammatical errors and have accumulated several thousand edits worth of revisions and corrections? Consider writing that you are responsible for content management or content copy editing.

Or maybe you are the kind of contributor that spent thousands of edits worth of time creating missing pages and expanding stubs? Then content editing may fit your bill.

It may be that you specialize in images: creating high resolution graphics for your wiki, replacing old images with higher quality ones, categorizing them or all of the above. Then image management, image editing or graphics management.

Some find great joy in interacting with the community, spending a great deal of time helping new users get on their feet, policing comment threads for rules-violating content or simply glue the community together? Community management may be the right description to put under responsibilities.

Of course, there are many other responsibilites that may be mentioned, if applicable. For example, our venerable Porter21 can easily place website programming and CSS design and implementation under his responsiblities, as he has spent thousands of edits creating custom .css designs for The Vault and other wikis, on top of implementing complex, yet easy to use template systems.

Lastly, make sure you include the URLs to the wikis you are speaking of.

There are two important things to remember:

  • 1. Do not overstate or steal accomplishments; you might encounter an employer who himself is an avid Wikia contributor or knows one, and either of the above will lose you the job faster than you might say "I mistyped...!"
  • 2. Always be ready to explain what exactly your responsibilities were on the wiki. Again, be brief, but explain the nature of your Wikia work, what editing you do, point out any major revisions of yours that remain in use. Most importantly, be modest. A pinch of modesty may just be the spice needed for your potential employer to fully account for your Wikia experience.

Regards,

تغازل

Have you been able to translate your skills you use here at Wikia to a resume? Or better yet, have you gotten a job or internship because of what you do on your wiki? Let us know in the comments below.

Submit a blog post: Do you know of a good blog that someone on your wiki has written? Have you spotted a helpful post you think would be great for this feature, or have you written a post you'd like to share? Feel free to leave a comment (with a link) below or on my talk page!

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63 comments

 
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  • Great article, It'll really spice up many teenagers to-be CV's in the world. I know a lot theirs a large group of us teens who have really haven't worked in proper job placements, Instead do a lot of online work, this will really help out thanks! ~Kal

  • What is a resume????

  • Awesome! This could definently help anybody trying to get a job on such topics.

  • How odd that I was just discussing this very idea only a few days ago with my brother. I figured the idea might be impossible to actualize, but apparently I was wrong O_o

  • im a founder

  • Cool, I guess.

  • <FACEPALM>

  • If you ever want to use your experience here on a resume, don't plagiarize, use foul language, etc. Write and edit things you can be proud of displaying. (Not every edit has to be high quality. If you started 5 years ago when you were 13, and now you're 18 and can write much better, that's a good thing!)

  • This blog post is really convenient for me, because I started thinking about getting a job recently. When the time comes that I do decide to apply, I will definitely include my experience on Wikia in my resume. :)

  • I have just turned 15, and am a chat mod/rollback on wikia ( The Potco Players Wikia) for many months, gonna be a year in January, with nearly 6,800 edits. I will definitely have this in mind when it comes to time write a resume. Thanks for posting this!

  • Wait, we can use our time at Wikia as volunteer hours, right?

    • Hi Shrev64, I'm not entirely clear what you mean by "volunteer hours" but you can definitely put the skills you have learned under a volunteer section on a job app or resume.

    • Like, I'm a student in the IB Program, which requires Community, Action, Service (CAS) Hours. (link is here) But considering that we can put it under a volunteer section, I think my question is answered :)

    • Ahh, thanks for clearing that up. It's probably a good idea to run it by your school just in case! Always smart to get the facts. :)

    • They said it was completely fine as long as I wasn't getting paid...which I'm not ^^ The only part I need to worry about now is getting the proper signatures.

  • Ehhhhhhh.

    This is an iffy subject. Lots not being considered here:

    1. Do you want an employer (or anyone) to know that you go by the online username of xyz119, etc.? That may not be wise. 2. Suggesting that you are a "copy editor" or "content editor" without valid credentials (e.g. a degree in a related field) I think is incredibly misleading. It's akin to someone filming a musical performance with their phone, and describing themselves as a "volunteer movie/documentary director."

    • Hi LordTBT, Although I follow your logic, I think that nowadays most people understand that people have handle's/user names online.

      I have to disagree with needing a degree to list skills on your resume. There are many users on Wikia that have taught themselves extensive CSS, photoshop and design skills and more. It would be remiss to leave these off a resume because one doesn't have a degree. What's important is to list these skills under Volunteer Experience or Other Experience that way it's not misleading.

    • LordTBT makes a point about username; you would have different impression for a candidate whose username is "xXAwesomenessXx" than you would with a person whose username is "JoesD". ;)


      Also, I think one should assess their contributions/skills and determine if those contributions/skills are within the realms of professionalism (this term has a very wide meaning and relies on the individual's perspective/definition)...

    • Subtank, Totally -- maybe that's something to really think about when choosing a username? Although I think for our younger friends, attaining a job isn't the first thing on their minds. ;) I think Tagaziel is writing more for his peer group -- and perhaps to just let others know: hey, you can do this don't forget! I think it's great foresight of him and a really dynamic blog post.

      And to address yours expansion off of LordTBT's comment. Great point! AND it's also important to never embellish on a resume.

    • There's a difference between mastering computer programming (something that can be inherently demonstrated) and something that lies in the realm of professionalism, such as copy editing/writing. Sure, you may think you're a great copy editor, but just because you've made a few grammatical corrections here and there doesn't necessarily mean you're qualified to start copy editing for your local news publication, which in all likelihood utilizes a professional style guide (AP, Chicago, etc) probably not considered on a wiki.

      If one is credentialed to work in a field like this, I see no problem listing it. However, if you've received no formal training/education on the English language (and I mean more than English 101), than I would consider it stretching the truth, just like describing oneself as a "documentary director" for pressing the camera button on a phone during a Joe Jonas concert is also stretching it without previous experience working/studying cinema.

    • LordTBT, I half agree with you. Unlike many types of experience, Wikia contributions are publicly available, so a non-lazy resume reader can actually check and see if you really are an active contributor and sample some of your edits to get an idea of what you've done. Credentialing is nice, but rarely speaks to the actual knowledge and skills of a person. The actual skills and knowledge of credentialed people has varied wildly in my experience.

  • Thanks, I've never considered this, but I'm sure it will help a lot.

  • Offtopic notice: wikia staff does either have very good talent at taking pictures, or fails are properly crediting their pictures as is required by their own ToU. Sadly to say, i have spotted several places where staff have violated the ToU. Now i am wondering whether or not that should be acted upon or not. Since i am no admin, warning those is not my place. But hence, bringing it up under the attention several times might do the same trick. Ontopic (partially) For resumes to be containing stolen or non credited materials is a real no no.

  • 'Awesum.

  • I have not gotten a job or internship primarily BECAUSE of my wiki work, but it does impress people on resumes.

    • Hi WEIRDGREENMAN, Really? What was it specifically about wiki skills/work that kept you from getting a job or internship?

    • I guess it's mostly because being too elaborate about volunteer work in combination with other parts lacking a good impression. But that is a wild guess, it is recommended however to keep that in sight.

    • I tried to emphasize that being succint is better than being verbose. I may have failed to emphasize it properly. Woe is me!

    • Tagaziel, nope, I think you did a great job!

  • Perfect for IB students! Thanks Wikia!

  • I'd also like to say that you should watch what wiki you put up on your resume. If you got into an argument and your employer goes through your contributions.... that might not be the best *coughhackcough* wiki to share.

    • That's a great point Ji Robinson! And a valid argument to remind people that how they act online is always really important -- not only because being nice is awesome but also you never know who is watching.

    • Don't forget about your personal pages. People make jokes about what they do in the user banner, and it could reflect poorly. Excellent post; this could help. I have gotten a great deal of writing, formulating, programming and other experience gained through helping constantly on a smaller wiki, but I didn't realize the skills could be listed on my resume. SWEET!

    • Thanks Meighan!

    • I would also like to point out to Ji that he has a fair point. On the Bakugan wiki *coughyouwereblocked15timescough* so you might not want to put that one.

    • Ghgt99, let's keep this thread positive -- no need to point out anyone's prior behavior. Let's all hang out in the here & now. ;)

    • Agreed. ^_^

    • It is something to think about, though. Not all resume readers are lazy or ignorant of how wikis work.

  • I am reluctant to put my wiki experiences into my CV, but current job prospects suggest me not to do so since they are not that related to what I'm applying to. :P

  • Wait wait wait Meighan, is that a thumbed, sized image I see in the corner up there? All kidding aside, I saw the original comment and was intrigued by it. I thought, "I do a lot of work around here, why not show the kind of skills I have acquired doing this." Since then, I did go ahead and put Wikia experience on my resume, I figured it could only help.

    • Yep that is a THUMBNAIL! Although you know, I wanted to upload it 63 times just for kicks. ;) You do a ton of work on Wikia (like deleting my numerous image uploads) and should most definitely represent that on your resume. As I mentioned above -- I started blogging in 2005 and have since gotten an internship (that opened many doors for me) and two amazing jobs because of the skills I have learned online. ;)

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