evolution

Jimmy More is a producer who’s had a lot of growth in his career. He decided one day that he really need to show how he evolved . . . by showing how he evolved.

Jimmy’s resume is a take on the classic “March Of Progress” evolutionary pictures we’re all too familiar with. In his case, it describes his journey from student to commercial producer as a kind of evolution. Sure we know all our careers evolve, but he just got out there and showed it.

So of course I wanted to analyze it.

Looking at the Ascent of Jimmy, this stands out

• An extremely clever use of a classic image. Instantly you look at this and get what he’s talking about and how he’s grown, and the metaphor helps.
• The imagery is very detailed and witty- notice how each character has the trappings of that stage of his evolution. There’s a lot of wit here and it says a lot about him.
• It’s a variant from the use of standard graphs to use a different metaphor for growth – which can get attention.
• There’s detail at each stage of his growth, providing more information. He’s not just using this to be funny – though it actually is pretty funny.

Now evolution has a few bumps in the road, and there are a few here:

• Despite the detail this doesn’t feel to be a “total” resume. I’m not sure it should be, and maybe it needs to be paired with a more standard resume. But it’s not entirely complete.
• This metaphor may go good as a smaller part of a larger resume.
• The choice of italic font may not be appropriate, it gets a bit hard to read.
• The starkness of the resume is nice, but I wanted more detail.
• Design-wise, I actually feel it needs a border.

One of the things that stands out here is using a clever metaphor for job growth. This may be something for creative resume-makers to look into because there are doubtlessly others we can find and use. Maybe they’re the whole resume -or a part of it – but there has to be other imagery you can use to up communications and show your design skill.

Also I wonder if this may go well with another style – like the aforementioned book resume, or part of a portfolio (which Jimmy does).

Get to it. Start evolving.

Steve’s Summary: I’d get a laugh out of this resume if it came across my desk, because it’s funny – and clearly the product of a talented person. I’d definitely want to see a full resume or more detail though.

[“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