Steven Savage – Page 492

50 Shades Of Resume #27: The Super Simple

May 3, 2014 by Steven Savage

Eric Ghandi likes simple, which is a virtue for any visual designer who has to be sure pages and graphics work with phones, tablets, game consoles, and probably telepathic reception. So he’s got a straight up website and a very straightforward resume.

Its actually one of the simplest resumes I’ve seen in ages. It’s almost minimalist while still being visually interesting and engaging. So of course I’m analyzing it.

Here’s what I found works:

This is really, delightfully straightforward. Yes, it lacks details, but at the same time that’s literally its style. It obviously has a goal.
It’s uncomplicated. He goes and gets things done.
He further condenses the skill section into lines of skills, not categories. Normally i’m not for that, but in this case it works with the style.
The use of different font sizes works in this case – as the resume is so simple it’s probably needed to add some detail.
A good use of inverted color schemes (though see below)
Having the header a different background than the text is an interesting choice, it stands out.
I like the dashes of color for the internet connectivity, it ads some pizzaz.

A few issues:

I think the header is a bit large for such a simple resume. It could be reduced.
Not entirely sure the black-on-white text works for the section headers. I might have used different text colors instead.

This is a resume that gets me thinking. It’s so simple it makes me wonder how simple one can go . . .

Steve’s Summary: A solid resume that shows a desire to get things done and is free of BS. I’d like to get this one – but I would want a portfolio.

[“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

Way With Worlds: Panderdammerung #2: Your Biggest Sellout

May 2, 2014 by Steven Savage

Masks

Previously I discussed how pandering to your audience was a bad thing. It would break your world, confuse your technique, and risks humiliation – as well as the fact you’ll compete with people far better at selling out and far less ethical than you. i noted It’d be better to chose marketable premises or pick appropriate “views” on your world if marketing was important – and those can be rewarding approaches.

Having covered the danger of pandering to other people, I want to focus on the one person you want to avoid pandering to.

Yourself.

See it’s bad enough when you try and bound and twist your imagination just to tweak other people’s buttons. But when it’s yourself you’re pandering to, you enter a whole world of conceptual hurt. If you’ve ever read a book where the author was clearly writing with one mental hand down their psychological pants, you know what I mean. You how how their world (and their games or books or comics) look – a pile of wish fulfillment and personal delusions.

For some authors, you wonder if they didn’t even need you as an audience, – they were just going over their own fantasies. And when they do have an audience for their self-pandering creations . . . you’ve probably seen those. The kinds of audiences people look at and just wonder if they know how they look.

Sure, sometimes self-pandering sells. It may cultivate an audience because you hit the setting sweet spot for people like you. But my guess is that’s probably not your ambition.

(Or if you want a fanatic audience, you want one of a good quality).

But the pandering worlds where the author lives their own fantasies trundle out. Let’s look into just what’s going on.

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.

– Steven Savage