resume – Page 13 – Steven Savage

50 Shades Of Resume #9: The Amazon-Alike

April 15, 2014 by Steven Savage

So Phil Dubost created an online resume. But he decided to make sure his resume online didn’t look like a resume. Since people shop around for employes . . . he made it look like Amazon.

Yes, this is basically job applicant as product. On a site you recognize. Down to a redone logo, ratings, and recommendations. Phil went out of the way to put in an insane amount of detail.

What can we learn from Phil, beyond his love of running shoes? Here’s what I take from this resume:

It’s funny. Frankly very funny, because as you look at it you see more detail. it makes it almost relaxing to read, like a kind of puzzle or a treasure hunt.
There’s a sense of personality, from the humor it takes to do this to the large personal picture. There’s a sense of personal contact here – draws people in.
It’s clever. Phil shows his abilities, references, career, and so on in different formats. It’s all there, but in a different way.
It is, in the end, a full resume. So you get the entire story to boot.
It shows visual and technical skills. But what’s neat is you realize it after the fact – which adds more impact. You see this, think about it, then go “ooooh!”

Now do I have any issues with this one? Not many, frankly.

It’s a bit of a “one-stunt” resume – clever, but essentially it has one major stunt and that’s a show of wit and design. The content in the end is important.
Obviously this has to go with a regular resume on a job search.
Updating it may be a pain because you have to match new designs.

One thing that might be useful with the resume is to devise it as a web site that lets you re-skin it as a number of other site designs. That’d show off technical skill, design skill, and builds on the humor of it. It’d also be educational as one maintained it.

Steve’s Summary: I’d definitely get a kick out of seeing this – especially as the humor and skill produce an immediate sense of the person. As Phil found a job it must’ve worked!

[“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 #5: The Progress Chart

April 11, 2014 by Steven Savage

Let’s talk about progress, specifically the detailed chart Steve Duncan of Sven Studios made for his career.

Steve goes all out with a detailed, color-coded outline of his entire career. It shows work, education, what he did when, and specific events. It’s his life as a timeline.

So taking a look what stands out:

The sense of organization is obvious. This is a guy capable of thinking of his life and career in this organized a manner. Makes me think I should be doing Gantt charts of my career. A good takeaway here is to remember how a resume arrangement says something.
Lots of detail. His life is pretty much here.
It actually tries to combine several elements of a career into a single graph and show how they relate. It breaks the usual “categories” of resumes to say something different.
It gives a more unified, larger picture – that’s not always common in resumes, which tend to be broken into “life chunks”

Now as for improvements and issues

This is definitely a supplemental resume or one to keep on a portfolio. Not a resume I’d send in alone.
The font size is a bit small and could be larger
Sometimes the text is a bit too much – too much detail.
This might go well paired with a skills acquisition or history graph, if you’re going to go graph-focused.
If you paired this with a “regular” resume using a similar color scheme, it’d be an excellent bit of combined branding. If it was combined with a portfolio site with the same color scheme, that’d be great.

Steve’s Summary: If I got this resume it’d be interesting – especially if the job required a lot of organizational ability. But I’d want it with another resume that’s more traditional. I’d also probably wonder if this guy should be a fellow manager.

– Steven Savage

50 Shades Of Resume #4: The Old-Timer

April 10, 2014 by Steven Savage

Let’s take a look at Kelly Weihs’ old-timey looking resume.

Kelly’s resume has an old-timey flyer look here, complete with fake aging and retro fonts. It’s a standard resume in many ways, it just is gussied up to look like a post from times gone by. There’s actually some subtle graphical work here to get the look just right, and the more you look, the more details you see. Take a few minutes to go over this one in detail.

So what are the high points of this old-school yet new-school resume?

It’s actually a full resume. Not sure it’ll scan with the fancy fonts, but it’s easily human readable and has everything one would need to show their work history.
It varies fonts which adds some visual richness. A standard font is always nice to use, but varied fonts (and font styles) can be very powerful when used right.
The use of a focused color scheme – red, black, and the cream-colored background – lets it call attention to important elements or to make text stand out. It uses colors without overusing them, and gives the resume a coherent color theme.
The use of colors to make things stand out deserves it’s own separate mention. This is a very powerful way to guide the viewer’s eye.
It’s got a retro charm which also stands out – as opposed to looking high tech the high technology is used to make something look old. That’s a clever show of talent without being blatant.
It’s surprisingly condensed. The use of side-by-side, different font sizes, etc. helps get a lot of information in there.
The mention of activities and interests is important, and the little red blurb on loving history adds a personal touch.

A few things I’d do:

The use of different font sizes may be overdone. It gets a bit distracting and some may be too small, others (like the Education heading) are too large
I actually think the resume could use a different order – I’m big on skills, then work experience, then education.
I’d put Work For Hire as part of Work Experience.

Steve’s Summary: If I got this resume, I’d be pleased. It shows skills and creativity while communicating information. The whimsy also gives me a good sense of the person’s personality and interests – they like history and they made this look historical.

– Steven Savage