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