I don't want to see a tag cloud on your blog, much less your resume.
Actually, I don't want to see a tag cloud on your resume in particular. On your blog, it shows the jumble of stuff you write about. But your resume should not look like a haphazard jumble - it should be customized and laser focused to get a particular job.
While I understand the "creative" aspects of designing a resume like this, I find that they end up giving me a headache. Firstly, because the overuse of colour. And secondly, because I'm not sure where to get the information I want to get.
In the end, I end up being more frustrated with resumes like this. I think using certain bits (like the pie charts) in a regular resume would yield better results in terms of usability.
I don't know. It tells that he has a sense of individualism and confidence. Even if you can't keep him for a long time, an employer might still be able to benefit from such a personality. Also, honesty is a pretty bold statement to make.
After looking at the desired careers, my first question was 'why is the coding pie chart on the top line, and why are you studying computer science instead of business, which is apparently what you want to do?'. The skills section seemed a bit kitchen sink. I'm rather a generalist myself but many employers are suspicious of that.
I am not a fan of graphical resumes because I resent the time it takes to decode what the person is trying to say, but that's very much a personal bias. It is a good example of its type. The top left graph of how the op is spending college time was very good, and the most informative aspect.
I dislike the big chart on the top left. It's difficult to read and there's the disorganized star array underneath that gives me a headache. (Not to mention the content, are you applying to grad school?)
(The tag cloud is contrived right? (ie not from any data))
The "Skills" section is by far the most inspiring.
The skills section is where my focus when immediately but I'm thrown off by the groupings. How are InDesign and Dreamweaver in the same category? How is HTML next too C and Ruby? Why even mention these skills if you look at the right columns and see he has almost no interest in coding?
well, I got to say that I like your idea. It explores the other possibilities of representing self and own achievements, as well personal attitudes and interests. I am not sure if this is the right form, it is not mine to judge, but you are on to something. The CV/resume needs a significant change and should be rethought of. It needs to be highly personalized, but yet to have a somewhat standardized form.
I see that your interests are in UI and you found out the perfect one that has not been altered in almost a century. All kudos for initiating the focus on this topic. Just remember that people really do not want to figure out your resume. They just want to quickly compare (main purpose of CVs/resumes), and if that quickly isn't there, you might only end up quickly in the trash unfortunately.
However, I am also thinking of how to re-implement the CV/resume so that it reflects the creative capabilities of people on www.aleveo.com. In this case, I want it dynamic and involving ideas and public ratings. Currently I am playing with timelines and weighted image scaling for ideas to reach a functional form.
If you are interested drop in the idea of visual resume on aleveo.com?
Anyway I encourage you to explore it further, finding balance between written and visual form.
1. Why would Edward Tufte be rolling in his grave? Back up your hypotheses with a little data please.
2. Stepwise refinement is an acceptable development process, even here on hn. What you perceive as "lack of taste", I see as one of the steps.
3. OP is obviously experimenting, seeking feedback, and deploying it. Your feedback adds little. After spending so much time with boring corporate drones, I love posts like this where someone actually has the balls to push the envelope. Cut him a break.
4. If you only learn one thing about anything, I suggest you go back a try to learn something else. Enquiring hackers want to know.
On the Tufte note: for example, the pie charts are askew in some 3D angle, distorting the proportions of the slices. This looks cool but is uninformative.
I think he'd be best served to put this as a cover sheet atop a traditional resume. Certain people would love this; anyone who prefers a traditional presentation could just turn the page.
I thought it was a neat concept. If he were actually sending this to an employer, it would need some refining to properly target the intended job opening.
But dont worry Ajai, just wait a day or two and everyone else will start copying you.
I think you should look into making a program that can generate this type of resume, I'm sure Visual CV or another company would show some interest in acquiring that kind of work.
I generally agree with the negative feedback here. The idea can potentially work, but not as it is done right now. Also, Java is not an acronym. While those pie-charts are effective at introducing keywords, they say nothing about what you can actually do with these technologies. What does a small sliver for "C" mean? Or even, what does a large sliver for RoR mean?
It's just very messy also. What would you think if someone sent in one of these?
In writing a resume, you want to put your strongest points first. What I see is too cluttered. I see how you spent your time all over the place but time doesn't always equivocate with something amazing, a blockbuster on your resume. An example could be the a business course you took on entrepreneurship that was three hours a week but made the most significant impact on you in college and a discussion point you want an interviewer to bring up.
I think this resume stands out perfectly for the type of job he's trying to land. Sure this resume falls flat for a company looking for specific skills but I think this is more geared towards a company and position where they aren't sure what they want until they see it.
I'd definitely spend the time to figure the whole thing out if I got a resume like this on my desk.
I don't understand it. There are some "factoids" floating around, and many gauges and pie charts and diagrams. But nowhere it is explained what does they mean. Pie chart with HTML part, what does it tell about your HTML skills? That they are roughly one third of something, while C is one tenth? Of what? That big diagram in upper left corner, it's in hours every month?
I really don't like when vague feelings and rough estimates are presented like they are serious comparable measuers. I don't think this resume is an appropriate way to present information that a resume is expected to present.
Ajai, I really like the idea of creating a resume based on the Toyota Production System A3 report (http://www.coe.montana.edu/IE/faculty/sobek/A3/report.htm). I'm not sure if that's what you meant to do, but the idea certainly is striking.
* The axes are unlabeled, which makes for an unclear chart. Although it seems that the horizontal axis is time, I don't know what the vertical axis is; the name of the chart implies that the vertical axis is "effort", but I'm not sure how to read that (eg, what are the units of effort that you are using here?)
* The third dimension of the chart clearly does not add any informational value, and in my opinion does not add any aesthetic value.
* The grid lines make the words inside the chart harder to read, and do not contribute to an easier understanding of the data.
* I think you were going for a stacked area chart, which would be a pretty good choice for this, but I would clean it up: drop the third dimension, remove the grid lines, clarify the axes and units.
* The scattering of achievements underneath the chart use colors in the stars that match colors in the chart above, but do not seem to have any real connection to the information in the chart. In addition, I think the achievements would be more powerful presented in a separate timeline chart.
* The numbers on each meter go up to 100, which seems to imply a percentage. Ie, 40% driven by money, 70% driven by coffee. But, since the numbers don't total to 100%, my interpretation is wrong, or the chart is misleading. Either way, the meaning of the numbers you are using should be cleared up: what are the units, and what is the relation between the different meters?
* The chart also implies that deadlines are more effective at driving you than money is, which makes me think that if I give you a lot of deadlines, I don't have to pay you very much. Is this your intent?
* Overall, I think the use of meters here does not do well to communicate what I think you are trying to get across: that you are driven by interest in the material, by the importance of delivering a product, and only then by the money. I get that, but it takes awhile to unpack the meaning.
* This is essentially just a bunch of words of various sizes. On a website, I can see the purpose: indicating the relative appearance of the words in twitter posts, or in tags used to describe a set of blog posts, etc. In this context, I think you're trying to communicate the relative strength of your interests on various topics. Not a bad idea. I'd make the difference between the sizes of the words a little stronger, make the big ones bigger, and the small ones smaller. Right now, they are all sort of the same size. The things you want to make more prominent should be really obvious.
* I don't know what information the colors are supposed to communicate to me. Maybe you just wanted to use some color in the chart, but it seems like the colors want to be telling me something. But there is no key to the colors, so I end up confused as to the purpose of the colors.
* No units on the chart. Maybe this is, again, a relative measure of your desire. If so, that needs to be a little clearer. At any rate, should I be reading this as your desire for a career in coding is 1/9th your desire for a career in entrepreneurship?
* That's a lot of space taken up to tell me not ...
Thanks a lot Sean. Wow. You sure did put a lot of time on this. It was indeed the most helpful one of the lot and I agree with most of your observations if not all. The next one should look better.
As a hiring manager, I can honestly say if that crossed my desk I would probably pitch it. Way too busy and takes too much time to get the desired info out of it, especially for someone who claims "UI Design".
I will also tell you from my own experience, that I'm a more than a tad hesitant about college students and recent graduates who are heavy-handed with the "CEO, co-founder, and entrepreneur" titles and interests on their resumes. Not to be too harsh, but since when does a "society", which in most cases is just a loose grouping of people with similar interests, have or need a "CEO".
Get some actual experience under your belt and list some bona-fide measurable accomplishments on your resume (this is generic advice, not just targeted at you). There are many people who are legends in their own mind, but if you list bottom-line things you have actually done, that will come through on your resume. There is no benefit, IMO, to over-hyping glorified titles.
Much of the data on here tells me very little. You appear to have more OSX skills than linux skills, but relative to what? Linus Torvalds, or my grandmother?
I'm not 100% sure, but it looks like over the same period of time you put as much effort into "Firewall" as you did "classes". Were you a slacker in class, or are you good at managing your time such that you could handle both.
The resume format may be considered stale and dated, but from a hiring perspective I can tell you that it the best way to try and make impartial comparisons of people in regards to work experience, education, and other factors. This format is highly devoid of content that I could use to make a decision about your applicability for a job, which is not a good idea for a resume.
While this isn't exactly related to your Visual Resume, it seems the majority of your interests lay within the business/entrepreneurial realm, however you are a Computer Science major. Having coding as the lowest of your desired careers, yet majoring in CS is a bit confounding to say the least...
Frankly, hiring managers and recruiters have little time to decipher the resume. Standard formats improve the speed of cognitive processing. Even if you're the candidate of their dreams, they'll curse you for making them spend more time understanding that. And "remembering the candidate" is not necessarily a good thing: I still remember the resume from 1999 whose objective read: "Want to become the expert in Peoplesoft in 5 years", but not for flattering reasons, of course.
Thanks to everyone for the critique. It sure helps me in the direction I want to go towards improving this. As for some of the comments, I do plan to have this with a traditional resume so that those who are not interested can go to what they are comfortable.
37 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 83.7 ms ] threadActually, I don't want to see a tag cloud on your resume in particular. On your blog, it shows the jumble of stuff you write about. But your resume should not look like a haphazard jumble - it should be customized and laser focused to get a particular job.
In the end, I end up being more frustrated with resumes like this. I think using certain bits (like the pie charts) in a regular resume would yield better results in terms of usability.
If he does it, hopefully his bold statement reflects the real him — it's not just an experiment. It's a great strategy when executed well.
I am not a fan of graphical resumes because I resent the time it takes to decode what the person is trying to say, but that's very much a personal bias. It is a good example of its type. The top left graph of how the op is spending college time was very good, and the most informative aspect.
I dislike the big chart on the top left. It's difficult to read and there's the disorganized star array underneath that gives me a headache. (Not to mention the content, are you applying to grad school?)
(The tag cloud is contrived right? (ie not from any data))
The "Skills" section is by far the most inspiring.
Great point.
In my comment I was suggesting that the idea was inspiring to personally reuse or suggest :)
I see that your interests are in UI and you found out the perfect one that has not been altered in almost a century. All kudos for initiating the focus on this topic. Just remember that people really do not want to figure out your resume. They just want to quickly compare (main purpose of CVs/resumes), and if that quickly isn't there, you might only end up quickly in the trash unfortunately.
However, I am also thinking of how to re-implement the CV/resume so that it reflects the creative capabilities of people on www.aleveo.com. In this case, I want it dynamic and involving ideas and public ratings. Currently I am playing with timelines and weighted image scaling for ideas to reach a functional form.
If you are interested drop in the idea of visual resume on aleveo.com?
Anyway I encourage you to explore it further, finding balance between written and visual form.
Cheers!
2. Stepwise refinement is an acceptable development process, even here on hn. What you perceive as "lack of taste", I see as one of the steps.
3. OP is obviously experimenting, seeking feedback, and deploying it. Your feedback adds little. After spending so much time with boring corporate drones, I love posts like this where someone actually has the balls to push the envelope. Cut him a break.
4. If you only learn one thing about anything, I suggest you go back a try to learn something else. Enquiring hackers want to know.
Content: 4
If you could find a way to answer the reader's questions immediately using your presentation, you'd have a great resume.
As it stands, it's not easy to find out what I want to know. But one thing's for sure: you will not be easily forgotten.
But dont worry Ajai, just wait a day or two and everyone else will start copying you.
I think you should look into making a program that can generate this type of resume, I'm sure Visual CV or another company would show some interest in acquiring that kind of work.
It's just very messy also. What would you think if someone sent in one of these?
In terms of design quality, this execution seems a bit amateurish due to all the colors and typography.
The gold standard for personal information graphics is Nicholas Felton who publishes an annual report of his life at http://feltron.com
(And some of the charts, eg. the pie chart, make absolutely no sense.)
I'd definitely spend the time to figure the whole thing out if I got a resume like this on my desk.
I really don't like when vague feelings and rough estimates are presented like they are serious comparable measuers. I don't think this resume is an appropriate way to present information that a resume is expected to present.
I think the Pie chart section is actually fairly informative, a rare feat for pie charts.
Specific comments, clockwise from the top left:
--------------------------------------------------
The chart of effort over time
--------------------------------------------------
* The axes are unlabeled, which makes for an unclear chart. Although it seems that the horizontal axis is time, I don't know what the vertical axis is; the name of the chart implies that the vertical axis is "effort", but I'm not sure how to read that (eg, what are the units of effort that you are using here?)
* The third dimension of the chart clearly does not add any informational value, and in my opinion does not add any aesthetic value.
* The grid lines make the words inside the chart harder to read, and do not contribute to an easier understanding of the data.
* I think you were going for a stacked area chart, which would be a pretty good choice for this, but I would clean it up: drop the third dimension, remove the grid lines, clarify the axes and units.
* The scattering of achievements underneath the chart use colors in the stars that match colors in the chart above, but do not seem to have any real connection to the information in the chart. In addition, I think the achievements would be more powerful presented in a separate timeline chart.
--------------------------------------------------
The chart of drivers
--------------------------------------------------
* The meters are a little dark, and hard to read.
* The numbers on each meter go up to 100, which seems to imply a percentage. Ie, 40% driven by money, 70% driven by coffee. But, since the numbers don't total to 100%, my interpretation is wrong, or the chart is misleading. Either way, the meaning of the numbers you are using should be cleared up: what are the units, and what is the relation between the different meters?
* The chart also implies that deadlines are more effective at driving you than money is, which makes me think that if I give you a lot of deadlines, I don't have to pay you very much. Is this your intent?
* Overall, I think the use of meters here does not do well to communicate what I think you are trying to get across: that you are driven by interest in the material, by the importance of delivering a product, and only then by the money. I get that, but it takes awhile to unpack the meaning.
--------------------------------------------------
The tag cloud
--------------------------------------------------
* This is essentially just a bunch of words of various sizes. On a website, I can see the purpose: indicating the relative appearance of the words in twitter posts, or in tags used to describe a set of blog posts, etc. In this context, I think you're trying to communicate the relative strength of your interests on various topics. Not a bad idea. I'd make the difference between the sizes of the words a little stronger, make the big ones bigger, and the small ones smaller. Right now, they are all sort of the same size. The things you want to make more prominent should be really obvious.
--------------------------------------------------
The chart of desired careers
--------------------------------------------------
* I don't know what information the colors are supposed to communicate to me. Maybe you just wanted to use some color in the chart, but it seems like the colors want to be telling me something. But there is no key to the colors, so I end up confused as to the purpose of the colors.
* No units on the chart. Maybe this is, again, a relative measure of your desire. If so, that needs to be a little clearer. At any rate, should I be reading this as your desire for a career in coding is 1/9th your desire for a career in entrepreneurship?
* That's a lot of space taken up to tell me not ...
I will also tell you from my own experience, that I'm a more than a tad hesitant about college students and recent graduates who are heavy-handed with the "CEO, co-founder, and entrepreneur" titles and interests on their resumes. Not to be too harsh, but since when does a "society", which in most cases is just a loose grouping of people with similar interests, have or need a "CEO".
Get some actual experience under your belt and list some bona-fide measurable accomplishments on your resume (this is generic advice, not just targeted at you). There are many people who are legends in their own mind, but if you list bottom-line things you have actually done, that will come through on your resume. There is no benefit, IMO, to over-hyping glorified titles.
Much of the data on here tells me very little. You appear to have more OSX skills than linux skills, but relative to what? Linus Torvalds, or my grandmother?
I'm not 100% sure, but it looks like over the same period of time you put as much effort into "Firewall" as you did "classes". Were you a slacker in class, or are you good at managing your time such that you could handle both.
The resume format may be considered stale and dated, but from a hiring perspective I can tell you that it the best way to try and make impartial comparisons of people in regards to work experience, education, and other factors. This format is highly devoid of content that I could use to make a decision about your applicability for a job, which is not a good idea for a resume.
http://dizzia.deviantart.com/art/Curriculum-Vitae-PDF-690509...
The idea of a "visual resume" is really good especially if you are targeting a data visualization job
http://feltron.com/index.php