infographic – Page 2 – Steven Savage

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 #18: The Character Sheet

April 24, 2014 by Steven Savage

Taylor Smith is a bit of a character, and her resume is literally a character sheet. She’s got a cartoon-esque picture of herself, skill bars out of an RPG, and iconics indicating the technology she uses. You want a resume that gives you a sense of someone’s character, she’s got it, with a whimsical sense instead of the usually dead-serious resume.

Only this is also a full resume as well! Let’s take a look at what makes it work

First, let’s take a look at the cartoon-like character picture. This picture gives a sense of character, makes the resume seem human, and gives an idea of her artistic ability.
The use of icons and skill bars to show abilities is a nice touch. It saves the need for wordy descriptions and gives a visual reference.
The “tools of the trade” section is odd, but interesting, as it’s both skills and not. Not sure it’s a good idea, but the idea of breaking up and showing skill/talent sections differently is intriguing.
The Doctor Who quote at the top is a great idea, adds to the whimsy of the piece, shows character, and further humanizes the resume.
The “Fun Facts” section is interesting and humanizing as well – I always say show your hobbies.
The use of icons, of course, is great shorthand. She has a consistent style of using rounded icons that works well.
The use of the icons and the “skill levels” actually tells me the person wants to connect and communicate – paired with the humanizing image, that’s very powerful.
I like the color scheme. It’s friendly and professional at the same time.

Of course this is an ambitious redesign, and there are a few issues:

The lack of contact information. I’d probably put that below the picture.
The picture is nice, but uses a lot of real estate. It might be better about 75% of it’s current size.
I’d use a thicker Sans Serif font for the text, especially the section headers.
I’m not sure using offset boxes with rounded edges works with the corner boxes that display only one rounded edge as they’re partially “offscreen”
The skill section should be expanded to show more skills and abilities. It might combine well with the “Tools-of-the-Trade” section, though that is an interesting offset on its own.
The resume uses large icon and sections and thus may not be suited for finer details or expanded skills. It might need to have its sizing and layout changed to show more details.

I’m fond of this resume for it’s whimsy and use of multiple clever artistic ideas. If you try such a resume, here’s some thoughts:

In a resume like this, I’d update it constantly – and update the picture every 6 months to show improved skill. However, keep it facing the reader as that “eye contact” is effective.
Maintain consistency of icon design as we see here – maybe even make new ones as needed.
However you theme the resume, if there’s a portfolio attached, it should have similar themes.

Steve’s Summary: I’d love to see a resume like this come across my desk. I feel the person is really trying to make contact – and it tells me a lot about them.

– Steven Savage

50 Shades Of Resume #3: The Infographic

April 9, 2014 by Steven Savage

Next up in 50 Shades of Resume is an infographic resume from Martin Suster.

Martin’s resume goes landscape instead of portrait, and he uses the extra space to take an infographic approach to his career. It actually includes a lot of standard resume elements – skills, job history, hobbies – but in a different format. He tops it off with a simple, limited color palette, which is useful as it keeps it from being garish.

The high points of resume are:

It actually mixes standard resume elements with the info graphic approach, and can mostly be viewed either way.
The listing of the skills is actually very effective as it combines both a measure of abilities and general classifications to make it easy to read.
The use of the icons adds a nice, subtle bit of personality to the resume. This is something people could use on a variety of resumes.
A limited color palette keeps this from being garish.
The landscape layout allows this to be an effective one-pager.
There’s a good sense of “quantifying” here and of self-awareness. Despite it being a resume that uses an info graphic, I feel it’s about a person.

The limits of this resume, and suggested alterations:

On the skills, I’d list them in the order of ability from most to least ability, so there’s more symmetry.
Not sure the job history works. It could probably be reconfigured to give it more space.
The education graph is clever, but could probably be a bit smoother, going for a simple timeline.
It’s not a resume that’ll necessarily scan well. It’s probably well paired with a more regular resume – it looks great online or as part of a set of resumes.
This would go well paired with a regular resume – it’s a good, powerful personal snapshot.

Steve’s Summary: If I got this resume it gives me a sense of a person with a good sense of design and a real sense of self-awareness. I’d want some more job history though, and possibly a regular resume.

– Steven Savage