50 Shades Of Resume – Page 10

50 Shades Of Resume #26: The Personal Infographic

May 2, 2014 by Steven Savage

We’re familiar with infographics that get impersonal – in a way, they sort of straddle the line, but many get a bit cold. Elliot Hasse takes a standard few-colors infographic look and makes it his resume – and then makes it about himself, providing intimate details and humorous commentary. It’s a mix of a different metaphor for resume and a different approach to infographics – with commentary on culture to boot.

It’s a very different approach – frankly it surprised me a bit when I dived into it because it really is a different approach.

What stands out for me?

Elliot gets himself. This kind of resume shows he knows who he is, what he’s done, and that he’s looking on where to go.
There’s a sense of humor throughout the piece, which says a lot about his personality. It is, for its infographic look, highly personal.
Elliot goes for intimate detail and it does add a personal sense as well. This isn’t just bullet-pointed lists, but when he went to school, his love of beer, a side business, and so on.
He uses icons throughout which gives a consistent visual sense – and shows his design skills.
He also has a consistent color scheme, further showing his design skills.
The resume uses differing font sizes effectively.
The skills section is very clever – use if icons (while keeping the color scheme) and using a vertical graph to show skill levels. That combines two metaphors into one and says a lot in a small space, very cleverly.
The Frank Zappa quote is a firm statement of his personality.
There’s little wasted space. It’s a tight infographic.

And no resume is perfect, there’s a few issues I find:

This is a gamble as the resume is very non-standard flow-wise, and very heavy on more intimate details. Not everyone will appreciate this.
The font size in the “detail” column is a bit too small – mostly though, the font sizing works.
I’m not sure the timeline and the “detailed timeline” at the top need to be separated. If keep separated, I don’t think the dates and elements quite line up. They might work merged as a series of rows.
* As I often note, I prefer skills go earlier. In this case I may make an exception as the intimate detail is part of the goal.
I wouldn’t make a weapons reference in skills – that may go over wrong.
I also might put the skills in “descending order of ability,” though I suspect he wanted to have different groupings.
I also would have liked more sense of skills, but this was done while he was in school.

Two big takeaways are the interesting timeline at the top and the icon-and-vertical skill listing. Those are unique approaches and may be ones people can use or try out.

Steve’s Summary: If a recruiter gave me this resume, I’d get a kick out of the personal detail – I feel I really do get to know Elliot right away. I also like his sense of story – he knows who he is and where he wants to go.

[“50 Shades of Resume” is an analysis of various interesting resumes to celebrate the launch of the second edition of my book “Fan To Pro” and to give our readers inspiration for their own unique creations.]

– Steven Savage

50 Shades Of Resume #25: The Board Game

May 1, 2014 by Steven Savage

A few years ago Kristian Walsh created a resume that made a game out of his career – literally. Based on the game of life, she charted his life, skills, and accomplishments as a board game that looks a wee bit familiar to all of us that remember those classics.

But Kristain isn’t conspiring to make some of us feel old (that happens automatically), this is a resume that uses a far different metaphor than the standard resume – which in a way is another metaphor. It’s interpreting the CV history as something different.

To boot, he even has a video version available.

Now in analyzing such a unique resume, one faces the challenge in that it “is what it is.” But there’s a lot we can learn

First, this is a clever use of one thing to portray another. That already speaks volumes to a reviewer because it uses an unexpected metaphor – and shows Kristain is capable of thinking outside the box (and into the game box).
It’s actually a timeline resume, and as you “play along” you can see his history. This is a more detailed and personal history than the usual resume, and thus adds a more intimate feel.
The resume also calls out skills as they are learned, giving some sense of skills.
The relevant skills and history are also summarized on the right side of the page, a smart idea given how unusual this is.
Major milestones are called out in the “life-flow” which adds a further sense of what’s going on.
Notice how the “life-flow” takes you to the contact information and the final summary.

It’s actually hard to find issues with the resume as it’s really a success – a complete take of one metaphor and moving it into the other. A few things:

I’d use different colors for the board titles. Maybe code them to show “learned a skill”, “achievement,” etc. It breaks things up and communicates more.
The contact info is just there as usual text. That’s dull, and should be offset, a different style, or made to look like something else (Manufacturers contact information?).

Really, though, its hard to find much negative here. It’s just a clever piece of work. Opens me up to wondering what other metaphors we can use for our job histories . . .

Steve’s Summary: I’d love to see a resume like this come across my desk. Not only does it break up the monotony, it’s witty and makes me think – and tells me the person can rethink things and re-intepret them. Adaptability and imagination are powerful traits . . .

– Steven Savage

50 Shades Of Resume #24: The Colorful Standard

April 30, 2014 by Steven Savage

Peter Hrinko gives us a colorful resume that looks almost like some product packaging. The shaded pictures, the gradient text, the unified color scheme all look like there’s some kind of product here. You’d almost wonder if “Peter Hrinko” is a new graphics card or a band.

Yet what it really is is a colorful version of a standard resume. Peter’s jazzed up the usual resume while keeping it standard. There’s actually quite a few lessons here about making a resume interesting without breaking form:

The use of the inverted color scheme, of dark background and light text (which I covered earlier) is compelling – and he expands on this by using light colored text of different colors. It’s interesting and it stands out, without being distracting.
The large title is actually effective – and it sets the stage for using different-colored headers (below).
Putting the Objective as a quote is a smart, personalizing touch.
He uses different font sizes and colors to emphasize specific sections and areas. That makes them stand out – and note how he cleverly uses multicolor/multi-format headers to make each title have the core word stand out – like “Experience” or “info” This is part of a consistent theme.
The use of darker-colored dividers makes the divisions more subtle, and focuses on the brighter-colored words.
Using a two-column model for his education, work experience, awards, and skills is a bold touch, and a good space-saver.
He incorporates icons into the resume on top of everything else, adding visual richness, drawing the eye, and showing knowledge.
He uses a picture of himself – but it’s a less personal one, it’s him at work. It keeps the personal element, but also adds a sense of the serious.
The picture in the right side is a nice break from “usual resume” look, and along with his photo, breaks up the entire resume.
He does a lot on one page.

There’s also very little I’d change, but . . .

As usual I think skills should go earlier. In this case he also mixes them in with the experience/education/honors column which is a bit confusing. Me might want to move the skills and program knowledge into their own parallel columns.
The “About Me” text is a bit too flush with the picture. Actually, it might go good lower so the picture stands out, or may not be needed.
I’d like to see more work experience, but that might not be possible and still keep it on one page.

As I analyze resumes I’m seeing more “multicolumn” models and changes to standard color schemes. I think these are areas we can really explore as resume-makers.

Steve’s Summary: Hand me this resume and I get a very positive impression. Here’s a solid, professional resume that shows his skills as well as his history, communicating them well – and communication is what a resume is about in the end.

– Steven Savage