Geek Job Guru – Page 17

50 Shades Of Resume #36: The Multimedia Experience

May 12, 2014 by Steven Savage

Kieth Montalbo’s resume catches your attention because of the huge pop-culture media collage on the left side. It’s a bit of a treasure hunt of media, characters, and styles, and is frankly kind of fun to pick through.

Of course after you see it you notice he’s got an entire resume going on here, mixing straight up resume and artistry. Let’s see what we can learn from it:

First of all, let’s get the giant collage out of the way – it shows his abilities, interests, and is an attention-getter. Does it work? Simply, yes.
Beyond the spectacular collage, he has a consistent color scheme and design going that shows more design skills – the “resume” part of the resume also shows his abilities.
The “informal” fonts used for headers is a nice addition. It keeps up the semi-formal feel of the resume.
The skill section, using the classic “bar” approach works well in this design, working well and consuming limited space. It also works as this is a non-standard resume.
The experience section is light on details, but nice and simple, and reflects the other elements of the design. Normally I’d put dates, first but I think this style works – the dates wouldn’t work in the lighter green.

A few things I’d change:

Not sure the education section works. The fonts are a bit small. However I do feel some kind of icons or art elements are needed to break the “resume” section up.
Not sure the seminar section is needed, and it might be better done combined with the education.
I’d also put education and such lower on the resume. Though in this case I think the education section near the top somehow works, probably as it breaks things up.
This might be a hard resume to update.

As a note though I think the “collage” works I think anyone attempting to do the same would have to make sure it works with their style, skill, and resume. It’s not just the collage, but everything else has to hang together. In this case it does. The collage is cool and telling and shows talent – but it’s part of a good resume.

This is also a resume that I think would work good with a portfolio and business card of similar design. It would be a real “unified brand.”

Steve’s Summary: This resume shows a lot of detail, in a fun manner – and pretty much shows what he can do right away. Definitely one I’d like to see, though I would probably want some more career detail.

[“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 #35: The Personal Touch

May 11, 2014 by Steven Savage

Clifton Roberts would like to introduce himself – and that’s just what his resume does. In fact it opens up with a friendly greeting coming from a picture of himself. It’s a resume that starts right off with the personal touch – and there’s more when you look into it.

It’s a straightforward resume, but there’s little touches and quite a few lessons:

The introduction and his “speaking picture” is a great lead in. It makes a personal connection right off the bat.
There’s a good unified color scheme.
I like how he uses a all cap bold red font for “leads” for each paragraph. it gets attention and makes the resume more visually interesting.
Having art of himself (combined with an abstract picture is another way to show his skill.
He leads off with skills – but also does something different, working icons representing his software knowledge separately in the “portrait” piece. That’s a different approach, and might be something to consider for other resumes.
Skill section also shows a lot of detail.
He’s also put a lot of detail into his experience section by using a paragraph approach. Not always something I do, but it works well here.
Finally, it’s nicely restrained. It’s precise, not overdone, and effective.

Now a few things I might change:

The contact information is a bit dull. I think another speech balloon may be order.
He breaks with his red-then-black paragraph structure in his Personal information section. I’d go back to that.
The references are probably not needed.

Overall, a well-done resume. Personal, gives you the right information, and has an interesting way to “double display” skills.

Steve’s Summary: A good resume, the kind I’d be glad to see. Professional, clever, and effective, without overdoing it.

– Steven Savage

50 Shades Of Resume #34: The 8-Bit Resume

May 10, 2014 by Steven Savage

You probably saw this resume on the internet before. Robby Leonardi decided to put his resume as a kind of 8-bit adventure reminiscent of the Mario Games. Think of it as Super Job Search Brother.

Now it’s easy to dismiss this as “cool” and move on. But if you’re thinking of employing Robert (which, as he made an 8-bit resume is a likelihood) then you’ll see it tells you a lot. It’s also important to take a look at in detail to see what we can learn:

He’s got a consistent look. There’s a lot of research and fine detail here, and it shows.
The resume clearly shows a lot of thought, ability, and technical skill. It’s actually subtle in its own way – though it’s a clear demonstration of skill, it’s fun and not “in your face.”
His skill about section uses what we’ve seen several times – a kind of “rating bar” – but he also uses some familiar plants instead of bars.
He reflects this “rating” system in his skills. – in this case using sea life. He also shows a lot of skills in this case, giving a good sense of detail
The working section displays what he did in each job – as a percentage pie graph. That’s an interesting touch period – but also looks neat when done as giant robots.
Showing his awards as a vertical progression is a nice break from the horizontal progress.
The resume ends with a contact form – a good way to encourage people to contact him. Which they should.
At the end there’s also links to social media and a PDF resume – that reflects this resume.

There are a few critiques:

There’s a few too many ‘intermediate” stage you have to scroll through. It could have been amusing to add a “warp zone.”
The “About” section is a bit general, so it’s not clear you’ll get to skills later. It might be good to have put them together

Really, this is a quality piece of work. Effective, clever, showing his skills, a break from the usual, it’s a good example of a functional/stunt resume.

Steve’s Summary: As you can guess, I’d love it if an applicant had something like that. Not only is it good, but it also has a fun, whimsical sense. It’s not showing off – it’s showing skill.

– Steven Savage