Resumes Way Better Than Your Bullet-Pointed One

I like to watch fluffy careers, kind of like watching a train wreck, don't want to be there, but find it fascinating to observe from a safe distance.

Pretty much all Science/Engineering jobs want a machine readable resume. If it can't be scanned in and OCR'd your chances of making the first round of cuts is slim and none.

The funniest thing about this is that the typography is absolutely horrific. I hire lots of design students and interns and I wouldn't have got past the "What I DO" part, I would have tossed it. Horrible kerning and spacing and it gets much worse the farther down you go.

Making these kind of resumes seems fun and all, but I agree with vonskippy - all Science and Engineering jobs (come to think of it...probably other fields of work as well) have to be scannable. Putting in anything graphically pleasing is a big no-no.

Additionally, I would be worried about not being taken seriously if I make a pizzazz resume.

Yeah, it all depends on the job. Science and engineering resumes probably wouldn't be appealing to the general public enough for us to post as something "neat", but graphic arts and web design resumes are worth a look even to outsiders.

If I ever have to put another resume together (God forbid), it would probably be just an email full of links.

Do people seriously name drop and put who they know on resumes?!

Thanks for reblogging this! I designed three of the résumés in that post and I'd be happy to do yours. Even scientific people.

Why do résumés need to be scannable? Are you only applying to posted jobs? That's job search faux pas #1.

@Hagan -- Why do resumes need to be scannable? Really? Have you ever hired anyone? It's a huge and time consuming task - and one to be squeezed in amongst the 73,000 others that need to get done. Few people have the time to devote to poring over a single resume/graphic poster.

The real faux pas (in job searching or anything else) is that "it's not all about you" -- you have to think about the needs and desires of the recipient of your actions. Yes, these resumes/CVs would stand out -- so would an interviewee dressed in a neon green suit with an orange tie. Memorable but not always in a good way. Even in a creative industry, I think this would be something to supplement, not replace, an easier to read, traditional format.

And BTW, I do realize that scannable in this instance refers to electronic scanning -- a requirement in some offices.

This one mentions a hamster? How could she expect to be taken seriously?
Although, I could use a student of French film directors...

"Do people seriously name drop and put who they know on resumes?!"
@morz

It's just a spin on what we normally call REFERENCES. Good fucking CHRIST nothing is ever fun with all you haters!

Man, I went to the site, and it is garbage. The site highlighting these "great resumes" is horrible and difficult to navigate. The resumes shown are busy beyond belief. The information provided is unprofessional, crowded, and irrelevant. For a designer to present that mish-mash as her resume is laughable.

It's not a question of being "fun" when you're looking for a job. This resume is destined to go straight from the envelope to the recycle bin. That's not "hater" talk - that's realistic.

These are not good resumes for cattle call situations. For situations where one already has a foot in the door, they can make the candidate stand out. If you're looking to hire a graphic designer, you might put an ad on a job board and get hundreds or even thousands of resumes but you're also going to get a handful of resumes from your current employees of people they know. It's that back channel in which these resumes would be good for getting to the top of the short stack. For the large stack, that's a keyword crapshoot anyway.

Your resume should not be your portfolio. Not only is this not a good design, it's not good practice, ESPECIALLY in creative professions. Make it readable, make it look *classy*, but don't overdo it. Let your creative work speak for itself in your portfolio. Hiring managers won't care about your overly-designed resume.

There are so many random pitfalls in applying for a job then why not try to stand out. All these "no no's" and faux pas #1 things are twaddle.

Employers want to rake people over the coals like "The Apprentice". All they need to know is "is this person stupid or not" and "can they hold down a job".

Then they start with the fifteen interviews, roleplays, question and answer sessions, screenings, another fifteen interviews, final interview, seance and tribal dance followed by a full dna scan and biometric analysis. If you pass all that they have the pleasure of informing you you almost made the final cut - try again next time.

Employers are the most evil people in the world :(

Too hard to read.

The person who's performing the initial screening of your resume' is typically not the creative person he/she is usually a Human Resource staff person. It would be foolish to submit a resume' in that format.

It is unreadable. You can be creative with your letterhead a layout but something like this is just asking to be thrown away especially by anyone hiring designers.

I worked in a recruiting agency in France until 2 years ago. We received many "standard" resumes, up to 500 a day. Then we got mailed a bunch of "weird" resumes, that's like 50 per day.
"Weird" meant badly formatted, video discs, infographics (like this one), printed on cardboard, oversize posters, huge books of images and such.

I had to interview a few dozens of those people, and a "weird" resume inevitably was followed by a confused girl -or, less often, kid-, dreaming of her first job in the flamboyant world of media business (as lead art director or creative guru, of course), lacking any practical skill needed in the real world.

Lesson 1) We see a damn lot of "weird" resumes. Keep that firmly in your mind.

Lesson 2)Your chances of standing out are actually way lower than the chances of being spotted as a douche.

Lesson 3) The most common way your resume will "stand out" is by giving away that you are a freshman in the business.

Words of wisdom right here; Your chances of standing out are actually way lower than the chances of being spotted as a douche.

Keep that in mind as you journey through life or as you are having one of ten interlocking puzzle pieces tattooed to your abdomen.

I don't understand why everyone is hating! Constructive criticism is great but making comments just to be hurtful shows the kind of person you really are. This resume is a great start and obviously will evolve as she gains more experience. And if anyone actually read the article it says she's a graphic designer so obviously her resume is going to be different from those who are in science or business professions. Those who leave negative comments are not earning anyone's respect, they just look like negative jerks.

maybe "negative jerk" is better than "overly optimistic douchebag".

I'm sure this kind of resume are curious and fun to see for the casual viewer, but keep well in your mind that a professional recruiter, or a company HR, sees this kind of bullshit multiple time on a daily basis.

This is not what we want, not what we need, not what we look for.

Best case, we will give you at most 10 minutes: the time needed to choose a business category, add your formatted resume to our text-searchable database and click a few links of offere you may be interested into.

Worst case (the usual one for infographic resumes), we just delete your entry and sometimes ask for a real resume.

We are not asking for your portfolio. We need your info. We will check your skills and works later on.

Please, note that I was Senior of the Graphic, Media & Architecture business dept in a world class recruitment agency.