Infographic Resume

Most people detest their resume, but let me tell you:  It's twice as bad when you do reporting for a living.  After all, a resume is a means to convey information:  A resume is a report.

I mean, could I really expect people to believe that I'm capable of producing innovative data visualizations, after I just handed them a mono-spaced Times New Roman screed that could have come off a 1950's typewriter?
 So, years ago, I said to hell with traditional resume formats.  I applied all the tricks I knew about conveying information to create a far more visual format -- the results are below.

Sell Skittles, Not Steak
To me, the death knell of any resume is when the reader gets bored -- which happens far faster than we'd like to believe.  I must admit, when I'm facing a stack of dry resumes, I hardly make it to the end of the first page of each, before moving on.   So, I embraced that reality, and designed an info-graphic that conveyed all the important details up front.

I made sure to create distinct colorful sections, so that people could jump to whatever interests them the most.  I even utilized the space behind the info-graphic to store lists of keywords, so that the document searched well, to boot.   Admittedly, I do still have bulleted job descriptions.  However, because all important details were covered up front, these are more like an optional appendix, rather than required reading.

I must admit, this format certainly isn't for everybody.  It gobbles up a lot of content, and would look empty if somebody used it straight out of college.  Plus, some industries (like Finance) are sticklers for formality and might frown upon such formatting innovation.  Finally, the info-graphic might get stripped out in some document management systems (...although you could solve that by having well-formatted text behind the info-graphic, which conveys the same information).

On the bright side, it has garnered many compliments, from interviewers and recruiters alike.  It stands out from the crowd, which is good news when it's buried in a stack of similar resumes.  And most importantly, it conveys all the information people need in an engaging and colorful manner.


In the end, if reading a normal resume feels like eating a heavy steak dinner, this feels more like nibbling on a bag of Skittles.  And who doesn't like Skittles?  :)

Maybe You Should Try It, Too!
If you're thinking about trying something similar on your own resume, here's a link to the infographic (built in Microsoft Visio), and a copy of my resume for good measure.   (I should mention that the resume itself is in .docx format, and Word documents don't render well on iPhones).  If you come up with anything you're pleased with, I'd love to see it!