Growing up, we were taught that our résumés needed to follow a strict format and could be no longer than two pages. We were taught that a good résumé included all our work experience and our education and everything we could cram into two pages while retaining the standard format and (Microsoft Word template-inspired) style.

Luckily, it didn’t take me long to realize that a résumé was not supposed to be formulaic: it was, instead, a reflection of not only your experiences and accomplishments, but a reflection of you as a person.

I’ve written about résumés before, and while I still believe that they are a necessary evil to getting your foot into the door of certain organizations, I have been looking at alternate ways that are people are using to pitch themselves.

Recently, I found a fun little thread on BusinessWeek that asked people to write their résumé in 140 characters — a type of Twitter elevator pitch. Inspired by the really good resuwitters in the comments (I particularly like the one by Jon Garfunkel), I came up with my own:

Hullo, I’m Vasta, and I tell stories. I help organizations use the web to get their stories heard by the people that need to hear them most.

Not too detailed, not too humorous, but it explains what I do effectively.

Of course, this 140-character blurb will never replace my résumé, which in turn will never replace any kind of portfolio or even face-to-face interaction, but it did make me realize that brevity, apart from being the soul of wit, is also key to communication.

If you can’t describe your work in 140 characters or less, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your activities and discover what it is that you actually do.