In these straightened economic times, everyone both in work and looking for work are trying to find something that will give them that edge.
One of the most obvious ways is to get a clutch of amazing references about what a wonderful employee/colleague/boss/leader you are and how you have helped take the company from strength to strength.
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If you are looking for a job, you are hardly likely to offer a reference that does nothing but paint you in a glowing light.
Likewise there are bosses who will pen the most poetic prose in order to help what they regard as a useless employee out the door.
And more importantly, in this litigious age we live in, managers will write references that will not come back and haunt them.
Step forward a new idea by Marty Manley - an entrepreneur, union man and former assistant Secretary of Labour under President Clinton who created the Office of the American Workplace to regulate labour unions and promote workplace innovation.
Mr Manley is also the founder of Alibris.com the premier global exchange for used, rare and out-of-print books.
Through his start up company called Reputation Networks, Mr Manley has dreamed up an alternative to the old style reference called WorkScore.
In essence it operates like a cross between someone's medical record and their credit score only it is applied to work. Mr Manley explained:
"Employers in every organisation live or die over their ability to hire and develop people with specialist professional skills.
"Most of it is still being done on resumes and references which are self interested documents and therefore employers are having a harder and harder time getting accurate information about people."
Added to that, Mr Manley said reputations are moving online but the problem there is that in a lot of cases "inaccurate information spreads quickly and can do real damage."
He describes WorkScore as "the first social resume" that provides a profile of what you can do with ratings from fellow workers you have invited to comment on your skills.
Those comments are then given a score and aggregated, much like a bank would score your credit worthiness when it finds out if you pay your bills on time or not.
You also rate the person who is rating you and what your relationship is. So if you say the reviewer is a close contact and fair minded, then that assessment will count for more.
If you say they are loony tunes with an axe to grind, then the rating will count to a lesser degree.
Of course this mirrors the original issue with references in that you will presumably only pick people to review your work if you know they are going to do so in fairly fabulous terms. And with WorkScore you can delete the stuff you don't like.
Mr Manley added:
"It actually solves the Lake Wobegon problem where all children are above average and shows real strengths because it represents the accumulated knowledge of people who know your work really well."
Added to that, your WorkScore moves around with you and is not static and will have a summary that is searchable by employers.
It is also a two-way street, because users get to rate their workplace. Something that Mr Manley said is useful for prospective employees considering applying to certain companies for a job.
Anthony Ha at Venturebeat said he thought it sounded pretty useful compared to the likes of LinkedIn while Rafe Needleman at CNet.com said:
"I am not sure that WorkScore can scale quickly into a trusted brand that stands for accurate work assessment.
"I do hope it works, because it really could make information about skills and accomplishments transparent and portable, and it gives workers more control of their personal brands".
WorkScore is in beta testing, so for the moment is free.