A Way Out of HR: Crafting Your Personal Narrative

HR support docs for a 3% raise for next meeting. Everything is well documented to explain in stupid. It never works.

I spent most of my career in Human Resources, always searching for a way to escape the personnel business. I longed to do something more meaningful than merely checking boxes at new-hire orientations.

Yuk.

One of my favorite topics was the futility of performance appraisals. Those dreaded annual meetings with the boss to discuss raises were a farce. Personnel types train managers to script these reviews, and the worst among them often become self-righteous when the manager inevitably fumbles the meeting.

No wonder people despise HR. I’m pretty sure most still do, despite all the talk about digital transformation.

Getting it right is nearly impossible. I purged those ridiculous files when my employer allowed me to. I even called off the pointless meetings. The reason a manager struggles to explain the difference between a 2%, 3%, or 4% raise is simple: it’s nonsensical. Even AI won’t crack that code.

Applicant Tracking - Evaluating What You Typed

Searching for the buzz words. HR doesn't read your resume. Get them to read your best headlines.

I remember when Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) were the primary concern for job seekers. Back then, the challenge was straightforward: get past the machine.

Candidates tailored their resumes with the right keywords, job titles, certifications, and industry buzzwords. Recruiters relied heavily on ATS to sift through hundreds of applicants and identify the strongest matches. If your resume contained the right language, you had a decent chance of making the first cut.

But the machine wasn’t evaluating who you were.

It was merely assessing what you typed.

Once you made the shortlist, the next steps included interviews, reference checks, and background investigations. For better or worse, candidates largely controlled the information being reviewed.

The AI New Reality - Digital Footprints

It depends on the AI tool. It should depend on you.

Today, that world is shifting. Artificial intelligence is crafting a new reality. Employers, clients, business partners, and even potential customers can learn far more about us than what appears on a resume. AI tools can analyze websites, LinkedIn profiles, published articles, biographies, interviews, presentations, testimonials, social media activity, company newsletters, police blotters, announcements, and annual reports. In mere minutes, these systems can generate a surprisingly detailed profile about you and your work history.

The question is no longer:

"Does this resume contain the right keywords?"

It is evolving into:

"What story does this person's digital footprint tell?"

Imagine an AI-generated report about you. What would it reveal?

Would it identify you as a leader? A subject matter expert? A trusted advisor? A creative thinker? A community volunteer? An entrepreneur? Or perhaps, a person with two drunk driving charges?

What kind of performance appraisal would it draft for you? You can’t hide those blemishes in the police blotter from twenty years ago! Or would it find very little at all? It all depends on the AI tool!

But it should depend on you.

Don't Let a Crappy Supervisor Write Your Story

A crappy supervisor vs. AI -- they both sound like robots!

For many professionals, this reality is unsettling. Not because they lack accomplishments, but because they have never intentionally documented them online. Most people have spent decades building careers, raising families, leading organizations, solving problems, and creating value. Yet much of that story exists only in memories, old resumes, filing cabinets, and photo albums—essentially, personnel files of your existence.

Take it from an anti-HR Human Resources rebel: those personnel files do not capture the true story. Those performance appraisals are often more reflective of the person who writes them than the subject who endures them to secure a 4% raise.

Meanwhile, AI is piecing together conclusions from whatever information it can find. AI is drafting your performance appraisal before you even get a chance to be judged by a lousy supervisor who only wants to give you 3%. I’m not sure which is worse—the supervisor or the AI.

Digital Legacy Management

That’s why personal branding is no longer just a marketing exercise. It has evolved into a form of digital legacy management.

Every article you publish. Every testimonial you collect. Every presentation you deliver. Every biography you write. Every story you preserve. Each one becomes part of the narrative that others will discover.

As someone who has spent years trying to eliminate the nonsense from personnel policies—in recruiting, human resources, organizational development, communications, and leadership consulting—I find this shift fascinating. The tools have changed dramatically, but the underlying challenge remains the same.

People want to be known. People want to be understood. People want their contributions to matter.

The Story is Still Up to You

The difference today is that our stories are no longer told exclusively by us. Increasingly, they are being interpreted, summarized, and presented by artificial intelligence. The question isn’t whether AI will form conclusions about you.

The question is whether you’ve given it the right story to tell. The real story.

The right story. The real story is up to you.

And perhaps more importantly: If someone searched your name tomorrow, would the results reflect the life you’ve actually lived? Or only the small fraction you’ve chosen to leave behind?

Just a question. Your HR department can’t answer it. It’s not in their policy book. Jeez. I tossed a lot of those out too. The customer isn’t willing to pay for your bulky employee handbook.

It is not up to your potential employer to write the rules.

It is up to you.

Beyond a Gift Book

Beyond a gift book. Get them to notice your best headline. Your story will look great in royal blue with gold trim. Captivate them. HR may even read it.

This goes beyond just a hiring blog pitch. It explains another reason why Captivating Memoirs exists—not just for writing gift books or biographies. Winston Churchill famously remarked, “History will be kind to me, because I intend to write it.”

Ask ChatGPT for a wiki on old Winston. AI today repeats the same good stuff about him that has been plastered across the world in history books. It merely echoes the story as it exists, while the bad stuff gets buried in the footnotes.

HR people don’t even read your resume. Get them to notice the headline. They may not even reach the fine print if it’s buried under a lot of good stuff.

Because AI, search engines, employers, clients, and even grandchildren increasingly discover us through our digital footprint. Be careful what you wrote on that public dating website. It may cost you a job. Or worse, embarrass your kids!

Maybe I can help people become intentional authors of their greatest story, instead of passive subjects.

Stuff that in my personnel file. --wix--