Sunday was the beginning of my journey in Baltimore for Career Thought Leaders Conference. Lest anyone doubt that online friendships can’t convert to real life encounters, Sunday’s reception and the warm hugs was proof to me that you can get to know people online and grow business and personal connections.

I am so excited to be here and spent so much time learning new career coaching, resume writing, and entrepreneurial skills from the best in the industry that I didn’t have time to blog. The speakers were all exceptional and learning from Wendy Enelow and Louise Kursmark as well as 150 other of my educated colleagues was a treat!

The first day was an in-depth mastering resume writing curriculum discussing the changing trends of resume writing and the best methods of incorporating my client’s accomplishments in the resumes. Louise and Wendy reinforced the “shorter, tighter, and leaner” style of resume writing and the professional resume writer’s ability to consolidate and integrate vast amounts of information – 2 pages of client information diffused into one sentence.

We were encouraged to include lots of life experiences which has remarkable power to build confidence in the client’s abilities and talents. As I already do, we were told to learn to talk the language of the client. Whatever field we work with, we need to be able to translate the resume into the right keywords and accomplishments. One of the sample resumes showcased charts showing profit performance, earnings per share improvement and stock performance during tenure.

Besides writing strategies, we were given new ways to capture critical information from clients. In addition to many of the strategies I already use, we were taught more workarounds to discover and uncover the meaningful information that some clients struggle to articulate.

Deb Dib, the CEO Coach, ended the day with a discussion on future trends and the already often tweeted phrase, “So what, make me care, and do it fast” phrase emphasizing the role that social media is playing in job search strategies and communication. Resumes need to be able to “Grab them, hook them, and reel them in,” said Deb Dib as part of her closing remarks for Monday.

Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is beautiful and our Hyatt hotel supplied beautiful views from multiple vantage points.

Building friendships and collaborative relationships in this energized group of career industry professionals was worth the trip alone. I introduced myself to many people I met before on career industry e-lists, on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The experience of finally meeting my colleagues in person could be described in many words, but it was easy to have a joyful attitude when surrounded by so much talent in one space.

The other two days of entrepreneurial success training and career and job search coaching were equally amazing. The end result is that I realized that moving an online experience to real life is worth the investment. But we pledged to resume our online communication with an understanding that now we see the full value of the person behind the online identity.