Tell HN: My experience with a "Resume 2.0" site.
There's seems to be some interest around here in these “resume 2.0” sites lately, so I thought I'd throw my experience out there for the benefit of my fellow HN'ers (also some critique will be coming my way, I'm sure.).
I was contacted by their CEO who said he was impressed with the site and my passion. After some back and forth questions he said they'd already filled the two positions for which I may be a good fit. He wished me the best of luck and said he'd pass on my info to any interested parties he came across. (This was last week.) It was a positive experience overall, but no offer.
Since I didn't get the job, I re-purposed it for 37signals and sent it to them as an application piece for their current UI opening. (http://ilove37signals.com) I haven't heard from them either. (Probably some really stiff competition there, considering their level of pop-dev media exposure.) I'd like to get some feedback on this. It's my code and the enthusiasm is sincere, but I felt weird re-purposing it after building it for a specific company...
Maybe my interface design/dev and copy writing chops aren't what I thought they were, or maybe I just had bad timing. I’m also aiming high, because I actually like my current job, but it looks like pay has leveled out and I basically have no benefits (I pay almost $1,000/month for health coverage for myself and my family.)
As for the code, it was meant to be a resume/portfolio in and of itself as evidenced by the content, but also the back end of it utilizes everything I currently know about CSS3 and responsive web design with lots of nice (IMHO) touches like embedded web fonts, shadows, text shadows gradients, media queries, transforms etc... I think it's a pretty slick piece.
I'm probably going to re-skin my personal site at http://wademeredith.com with some iteration of this design and keep looking for a telecommuting/Kansas City job as a UI designer/developer that actually has benefits.
FWIW, As long as it's an employer's market, I think this "resume 2.0" trend will grow. A competent design/dev can knock out a completely custom one of these out in a weekend. (I did this over the course of about 7 days in my spare time. I work 60 hours a week and have an 11-month old daughter.) When the cost of really standing out from the stack of resumes is a weekend project's worth of work, why wouldn't you do it? Especially if it can land you a job you'll have for years.
TL;DR Didn't get the job, got a nice note from the CEO, will be re-purposing the code for something else since a lot went into it.
34 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 81.1 ms ] threadThat's a well known TemplateMonster template. Also, you're using Wordpress.
As for the template monster thing and the PKDcure.org design, that design is 100% original and was part of a 9 month roll out for a huge corporate client with usability testing and extensive UX planning etc, etc... Any similarity is coincidence. The design in question was worked on by a team of designers for months so it's ironic/depressing that there's apparently a template out there for it that can be had for a few bucks (I'm assuming). Although there's literally no way it's exactly the same, PKDcure.org is a 400 page site with 10-15 unique page layouts.
Can I get a link to the template of which you speak?
1/ The vertical coloured stripes look good on the "content" part, but not on the top, as a background to the "I love ..." text.
2/ You "cut" the page horizontally below the "I love ..." text, but this seems to be dissonant with the vertical stripes. Maybe the top part should have a different background color?
3/ The vertical stripes don't go all the way down, it doesn't look right to me.
4/ The screenshots move up on mouseover, but it doesn't feel right.
5/ The actual content of your "Resume 2.0" is still too resumey. "ColourLovers.com has been a part of my creative process blah blah... I've been designing, building and writing blah blah". I'm not saying it's bad, in fact it's probably very good, it's just not that different from a regular old resume.
6/ I think that a website-as-a-resume is an all or nothing deal. I mean, the person either sees it and says "yeah I want this guy", but if not, I don't think they'll go to the trouble of actually finding your resume PDF link on the site, printing it and adding it to their stack of regular submissions in whatever system they're using.
7/ Shouldn't the "one-page resume" link to a PDF? I think it's broken, I can't get to your actual PDF resume to print it!
8/ As another commenter mentioned, you're using Wordpress to generate one page? It's even got an empty RSS feed =)
Hope it helps, good luck with your job hunting!
So a bit more work into it may be needed.
*Also, getting called out on the TemplateMonster...hopefully you're the original designer? Not sure what to think otherwise.
Thanks for the feedback, though. Will definitely take into account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9sum%C3%A9
It's not about a flashy design. It's not about specifically targeting the company you want to work for.
It's about standing out from the crowd. Being special. Once everyone and their mother start creating a "resume 2.0", it will become a commodity, and designers and developers will need to devise new ways of attracting employer attention.
That's a joke, but I guarantee we'll see one soon. It's probably already happened and hasn't been well publicized. I also recall reading a story about someone who targeted a resume promoting Facebook ad at a single person (their desired employer's creative director) in New York if I'm not mistaken.
It's an amazing time to be in publishing.
(Or perhaps you've removed it because you're showing the site to HN.)
Also if you like your job, then chances are your employer like you too. You really should consider asking for better compensation instead of jumping ship onto a different company. I certainly hope you talked to your employer first before announcing on the Internet that you're not satisfied with the pay...
As for the "wasting your time" on the resume 2.0 thing, I kind of agree and kind of don't. I learned a lot during this project, as I always do when I build something with functionality that I haven't had to implement before, so I don't think it's a waste. yes, I'm not getting paid, but honing your craft never seems wasteful to me.
Resume landing pages are marketing plays: they're targeted advertisements meant to get you attention.
Given 10 applicants of equal talent, who do you choose to give your time and attention to? This is where one person's extra time and effort helps them stand out. They also aren't huge time investments, and seem to have a good cost/benefit ratio.
Using a ton of different effects is very risky if you can't get them to work in unison. The first thing I noticed on your site was the glow on the text, making it fuzzy and hard to read. Also, the columns feel like an expanded Kuler palette, which doesn't really work well when used as the entire background. Overall the site just doesn't feel very polished.
In terms of re-purposing your design, if the latter company (or companies) finds that out, I don't think they'd be very impressed at all, as it shows a lack of effort. If you want to save yourself from having to create multiple top-notch resume sites, just make a really slick looking portfolio site that's not targeted to a specific company and give that link to everyone.
Take a look at prosite.com for a great way to develop a portfolio site. Consider connecting your site to your git repo or dribble, behance, or forrst accounts in a more visual way. I didn't see it here (I certainly didnt want to read it to find it).
I'm sure you will end up exactly where you want to go. Keep pushing for colorlovers. persistence is everything. Especially if you really want it.
And I see a small side business in this for you. I'm sure there are quite a few people (non-techies) that would kill for their own resume 2.0.
On a resume site, especially for companies such as colourlovers and 37signals, it's all about first impressions. You've got to include something that stands out and really catches the persons eye. Just because it's a "resume 2.0" site doesn't mean they're going to give a damn.
The header font just looks out of place to me, I don't think it's the font itself. I think it's the fact that it has a glow about the text which spans across the different color columns.
One thing that kills me about this site is the fact that your portfolio sites DESTROY this site in terms of design. Your portfolio looks great, this site should have just as good, if not way a better, design.
I would declutter it (use more whitespace for sure), tone down the colors (choose another color scheme, they don't work well in my opinion), and definitely focus way more on your portfolio than you are. My eye is drawn more to the "Hi my name is unicorn" picture than to your portfolio. That's not a good thing. Designers need to know how to draw user focus.
Is there a reason that "Hi my name is unicorn" image is there? I would personally leave stuff like that out of your resume. Just because it's "resume 2.0" doesn't mean it's ok to steer away from the professional direction.
I apologise if this came off in a bad way. I truly am not meaning to bash your site in any way. I'm just trying to provide feedback and my opinion (that's all it is, don't take it to heart). I'm also at work trying to type this out as fast as I can.
Good luck with finding a job if you decide on moving on from your current position.
http://jasonzimdars.com/svn/