Very creatively.
It’s hard to believe, but I have been at my job for over 20 years. When I began, typesetting was still very much a craft. We coded everything. We developed our galleys in a processor. We cleaned trays of developer and fix. We reclaimed the silver.
You need a wow factor: infographics and social media endorsements. Maybe a YouTube channel.
The first time we had a discussion about desktop publishing I was horrified. It all looked like it was created in a basement on someone’s old computer. Back then desktop publishing was to typesetting as pulp fiction was to established hardcover novels.
Time passed and things changed. We gave up processors for printers. We gave up film strips for font clients. We gave up waxers and X-acto knives for programs that not only let us type the words in galley format, but add the illustrations, place the page backgrounds, and print entire books with one command. Not only were we designing the pages, but we were creating 4-color masterpieces featuring some of the most interesting and talented artists of the time.
Eventually we gave up paper for proofing and began making our edits and markups in PDFs which were routed electronically, even out of house. All of this sounds so mundane now, but these simple changes caused large shifts in the corporate thought process. We became experts in our field and helped shape guidelines about privacy as well as community.
How do you express that in a few sentences on a resume? You don’t! You need charts and graphs and powerpoints and websites. You need a Wow factor. You need infographics and social media endorsements. You need to create the same buzz and demand that a self-published author needs to sell his book. Maybe a YouTube channel. And at the very least, a new hairdo.