For decades, the professional calling card has been a static document: the resume or the CV. We spend hours meticulously crafting bullet points, trimming margins, and exporting to PDF, hoping to distill our complex careers into a single, digestible page.

But what if you could offer something more? What if you could let anyone: colleagues, recruiters, event organizers, or potential collaborators—literally ask your professional history questions using an interactive tool?

With the recent launch of public sharing for Google's NotebookLM, as announced on the official Google blog, this idea is no longer a "what if." It's a reality. We can now create a personal, interactive notebook—complete with a chat interface, mind maps, and even audio summaries - that anyone can use to learn about us. It's poised to revolutionize how we represent ourselves professionally.

Beyond the Static Page

Think about the limitations of a standard resume. It's a one way broadcast. It lists your skills but can't elaborate on them. It mentions your projects but can't explain the challenges you overcame. It's a summary, not a story.

Now, imagine an alternative: a personal, public Google NotebookLM grounded in your complete digital footprint.

For example, as an AWS Community Builder in the DevSecOps and Cloud space, I grounded my own NotebookLM in my technical articles, community contributions, and detailed project experiences. This allows people to explore the depth of my expertise for any number of reasons, not just a job application.

What to Use as Your Source Material?

The power of your personal NotebookLM comes from the quality of the sources you provide. Think of it as creating a curated library about yourself. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Your CV or Resume: Start with the basics. Exporting your profile from LinkedIn as a PDF is a great foundation.
• Your Blog: Include articles from platforms like dev.to, Medium, or your personal blog. This showcases your expertise and communication style.
• Your GitHub Profile: You can save your profile page or specific repository READMEs as PDFs to include your code and project contributions.
• YouTube Videos: For any talks, tutorials, or presentations you've given, you can use the video transcript as a source, allowing people to "ask questions" about your video content.
• Your Personal Site: Your own website is a hub of information. Save key pages to add to your sources.

Why a Free, Managed Solution Wins

For the technically inclined, the idea of self-hosting a chatbot on a personal server, trained on your own documents, is tempting. However, this path comes with hidden complexities: recurring server costs, the technical burden of maintenance, and the constant worry about uptime. Your professional showcase shouldn't go down because of a server glitch.

This is where a free, managed solution like NotebookLM shines. It removes these barriers entirely:

• Zero Cost: NotebookLM is free to use. You can create a rich, interactive experience without spending anything on hosting or infrastructure.
• No Maintenance Overhead: Google handles the uptime, security, and scalability. You don’t need to be a server administrator to have a professional-grade interactive tool. You can focus on your story, not on system updates.
• Simplicity and Speed: You can go from a collection of documents to a shareable, public notebook in minutes, not days. The interface is built for content creators, not just developers.

By handling the infrastructure, NotebookLM lets you focus on what truly matters: curating the best sources to represent your professional identity.

Introducing the "Interactive You"

By making a notebook public, you're essentially publishing a personalized research assistant about yourself. You're not just giving someone a document; you're inviting them into a conversation.

This opens up a new dimension of inquiry for anyone interested in your work. A hiring manager can still dig into the details, but now others can too.

• A conference organizer might ask: "Based on your articles, what are the three key takeaways you'd share in a talk about infrastructure as code?"
• A community program manager (like for AWS Community Builders) could inquire: "How have you contributed to the tech community in the past year?"
• A hiring manager could still ask the specifics: "What's your hands-on experience with scaling applications on AWS?"

The AI, grounded exclusively in the sources you provided, would answer instantly, even citing the specific document where it found the information.

More Than Just Chat: A Mind Map of Your Career

NotebookLM doesn't just enable chat; it helps you and your audience visualize connections. The Mind Map feature can automatically organize the concepts across all your source materials, creating a bird's-eye view of your skills, projects, and recurring themes of your work.

Imagine including this link in your speaker bio, your application for a community award, or alongside your traditional resume. You're not just telling them you're a good fit; you're giving them a tool to explore why.

The Future of Professional Identity is Interactive

The shift from a static resume to a conversational, public NotebookLM is more than just a novelty. It represents a fundamental change in how we share our professional stories. It's a move from a flat summary to a deep, explorable repository of your knowledge, ready to be queried for any purpose—from job applications to speaker proposals to community leadership roles.

It’s authentic, it's transparent, and it's incredibly powerful.

Why send a PDF when you can send an experience? It's time to stop telling people what you've done and start letting them ask. Go build your own interactive professional story and share it with the world.

Check out my public NotebookLM here: https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/e22628a8-36a5-4482-b6ce-a7b720ec35de

What If - I Live in a Place Where NotebookLM Access Is Limited

I understand that NotebookLM is currently non available in some countries and regions (including the one I'm residing in). If you are one of those affected, do try one of my open sources solutions below:

If you already have an OpenVPN/WireGuard VPN:

• https://github.com/gabrielkoo/wireguard-configs-for-ai-services
• https://github.com/gabrielkoo/openvpn-configs-for-ai-services

If you have touched TailScale before:

• https://github.com/gabrielkoo/tailscale-config-for-ai-services

A common theme for these three projects is that instead of routing ALL TRAFFIC to the remote VPN (which severely slows down your internet browsing experience, and might causes e.g. Bank Apps to not work), my configurations would only route your IP geolocation restricted AI platforms' traffic to the VPN, while all remaining traffic still goes directly from your device. Under such a setup, you don't have to bother to always turning your existing VPN on and off - saving your precious time.