COETAIL: Visual Resume Experiment
Another post toward obtaining my Certificate in Educational Technology and Information Literacy (COETAIL)
I've been intrigued by the idea of a visual resume. As an educator and writer, a person who teaches about crafting with words, I'm always envious of illustrators and visual artists who can immediately convey to others the essence of their work in just a few images, so I thought I'd try creating a visual resume for my teaching and writing career.
I experimented with visualize.me since, at a glance, I liked the simplicity of some of their online examples. But I discovered that there were some serious limitations to the templates.
I tried several themes/formats. Most could not visually display my career, which happens to span more years than most of the templates allow. Some templates would only show experience and education since 1998.
Or if the resume template could accommodate a long and varied career, the information looked crunched and messy, even containing overlapping text.
The only option that could display 20+ years of experience in a visually reasonable format used bubbles, but even this theme was not ideal, requiring the viewer to match a letter to information listed below the visual.
There were various additional fields besides employment and education, such as languages (presented on a world map), skills, interests and stats. But, as one user noted in a comment, it might be more interesting to be able use the rather oversized world map for more than just languages, such as countries in which you've worked or countries in which you've presented.
Completely missing was any way to list key publications on any sort of timeline. Also missing was a field that might parallel experience for including related professional activities or volunteer work.
As I fiddled with these templates, I realized that creating an effective visual resume requires rethinking the resume entirely. Templates like those offered on Visualize.me might best be used as tools for creating a teaser resume, like a book or movie trailer, that serves as a lead in to a traditional resume.
The best visual resumes are mostly likely not created with basic templates but rather are specifically and uniquely custom designed by visual thinkers, either for themselves or for clients. In 4 Rules for Creating a Killer Infographic Resume, on The Daily Muse, we're advised not to even try creating our own visual resume; we should just to go straight to a designer. Funny that the author of the article just happens to be a designer . . .
Us word people come up short once again.
I've been intrigued by the idea of a visual resume. As an educator and writer, a person who teaches about crafting with words, I'm always envious of illustrators and visual artists who can immediately convey to others the essence of their work in just a few images, so I thought I'd try creating a visual resume for my teaching and writing career.
I experimented with visualize.me since, at a glance, I liked the simplicity of some of their online examples. But I discovered that there were some serious limitations to the templates.
I tried several themes/formats. Most could not visually display my career, which happens to span more years than most of the templates allow. Some templates would only show experience and education since 1998.
Or if the resume template could accommodate a long and varied career, the information looked crunched and messy, even containing overlapping text.
The only option that could display 20+ years of experience in a visually reasonable format used bubbles, but even this theme was not ideal, requiring the viewer to match a letter to information listed below the visual.
There were various additional fields besides employment and education, such as languages (presented on a world map), skills, interests and stats. But, as one user noted in a comment, it might be more interesting to be able use the rather oversized world map for more than just languages, such as countries in which you've worked or countries in which you've presented.
Completely missing was any way to list key publications on any sort of timeline. Also missing was a field that might parallel experience for including related professional activities or volunteer work.
As I fiddled with these templates, I realized that creating an effective visual resume requires rethinking the resume entirely. Templates like those offered on Visualize.me might best be used as tools for creating a teaser resume, like a book or movie trailer, that serves as a lead in to a traditional resume.
The best visual resumes are mostly likely not created with basic templates but rather are specifically and uniquely custom designed by visual thinkers, either for themselves or for clients. In 4 Rules for Creating a Killer Infographic Resume, on The Daily Muse, we're advised not to even try creating our own visual resume; we should just to go straight to a designer. Funny that the author of the article just happens to be a designer . . .
Us word people come up short once again.
No comments have been added yet.
