According to the company, who has become known for its innovation and forward thinking, there has to be a certain point at which the line is drawn. "We are approaching a day and age where everything is recorded forever," said McClain Concepts' Creative Writer, Rick Barclay, "for better or worse. The article cited used an example of developers who were starting to implement their forum ratings into resumes, and extrapolated the notion to include all internet activity to provide an online reputation rating. Unfortunately, that brings a lot of questions to the forefront, including relevancy, tracking, timeliness, and other important matters which are not addressed." More than a few have compared recent court rulings, which have used GPS data from cell phones to track suspects up to the minute for use in their apprehension, as a sort of precursor to Skynet from the Terminator movies.
Although the company acknowledges that this is a stretch, it also believes that there are certain things that the Internet cannot replace. "When you reduce everything to a number," said Barclay, "the human aspect is removed from the equation, and at the end of the day, the Internet cannot operate without the human operators--at least, not yet. Ultimately, we have to interact with each other, and inevitably, there are always going to be people we like, people we don't like; people who are skilled, and those who are unskilled. We cannot--or should not--reduce everything down to easy-mode just to take the risk element out of our daily lives." Increasingly, people have been trying to find ways of setting themselves apart from the burgeoning ranks of job applicants all competing for the same jobs. As a result, people have gone to lengths ranging from custom webpage resumes and Facebook resumes, to industry training courses and web based technology and apps. Just a few years ago, these resume tactics would have been looked at with skepticism or downright not looked at, depending upon the industry.
For McClain Concepts, their Orange County advertising strategies are still looking towards the future. "Everything starts and ends with people. When businesses forget that crucial element, that's when things go downhill," said Barclay.
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