50 Shades Of Resume #28: The Blurbs

by

Resume 28

Resumes are both ways to describe ourselves but also advertise ourselves. Briana Higgins ran with this idea to create a resume that “blurbs” her personality and traits while mixing them with her background and job description, with some infographics to boot. It’s a bullet-fast bang-bang of information with specific details when you drill down.

Needless to say it’s also a non-standard resume, though works a lot of standard elements into it. Let’s analyze what we can learn:

  • Mixing the personality traits (“Dependable”, “Versatile”) in with the regular resume background like education is an interesting choice.
  • There’s use of text running in various directions that’s a real change of pace from other resume – and also saves some space.
  • She uses different fonts, colors, and sizes to make the resume more interesting.
  • The use of icons in the left side is a clever idea that drives how what the sections are about before you read them.
  • The skill section is really unique – using the labels as major categories with a “ring” of specific skills around them. That’s a take that saves space and is visually interesting.
  • The resume then goes from the “Skill blurbs” to a linear measure of experience, which actually is a mix of skill and job history display. That’s a fast way to communicate knowledge and experience that’s efficient and easy to understand visually.
  • When you look it all over, the resume says a lot, but each part is different.

Now a few critiques:

  • I like the interleaving of personal traits in with the resume, but sometimes that can be overdone. it might be good to mix the “trait bars” with background elements relevant to said personality traits.
  • I think the “blurb” text may be too large – you could free up more space.
  • References are probably not needed, nor is the quote from a previous manager. Though the quote is clever, it’s usually not needed – it could be replaced with a personal or philosophical quote. However, it does fit the overall “show my personality” trait.
  • I’d have liked to see more job history Since she has a lot of skills, I’d want to see something showing what she’s done.

What I like with this resume is each part is different, so it doesn’t get dull, and there’s some ways to portray backgrounds that are clear, but also different. It also has a friendly, funky look that’s non pretentious.

Steve’s Summary: Hand me this and it definitely tells me we’ve got a person with skill, and I get some fast-and-easy summaries of what she’s capable of on top of the talent that went into the resume. It’s also enjoyably non-standard. I would want some job history though.

[“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 #27: The Super Simple

by

Resume 27

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

by

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.

Read more