Creative resumes
Franceso Mugnai recently posted the 20 most creative resumes on his blog. Here are some of my favorites.
Personally, I love the idea of resume and portfolio design, but it's still unconventional for most industries and certainly risky if people find the design distasteful. If one chooses to show off their creativity (or hire a pro to do it), it's important to remember the resume still needs substance. It needs to identify your skills, accomplishments, work history and education. A good resume design only won't get you the interview, but your experiences and previous successes will and you must be able to demonstrate those on one or two pages max (and not all of the resumes above accomplish this).
What do you think? How creative do you get with your resume?
Date: September 28th, 2008 / Author: Lindsay
Posted in Recruiting / Tags: creativity, design, Resumes and Portfolios
6 Comments - Add yours!
Zackery (September 29th, 2008)
I personally love creative resumes. I definitely want to create one like any of these, but I’m skeptical that it would be recieved well. I think I’ll try it anyway.
ZM
Lindsay Olson (September 29th, 2008)
Adam, I agree that having a great blog or case studies help build a strong case, but a resume is typically the starting point for those junior or mid-level in their career. It’s the foot in the door, nothing more.
The examples are all professional designer’s resumes. Not PR pros. I couldn’t imagine it would be easy for anyone without a design background to put these together and it would be a really bad idea to try to do it without those skills.
Lindsay Olson | Archivo » Creative resumes gone wrong (October 2nd, 2008)
[...] recently posted some examples of creative resumes that I loved. If you have the talent or you hire a creative hand, it’s definitely a way to [...]
Adam Singer (October 2nd, 2008)
@Lindsay – for a designer, these are GREAT resumes and are proofing of the design work itself.
Sorry to link in a comment, but I am rather passionate about this — what do you think of the thought that Resumes are meaningless?:
http://thefuturebuzz.com/2008/08/09/your-resume-is-meaningless-and-building-career-security-not-job-security/
Libby Krah (October 2nd, 2008)
Creative resumes are definitely attention-grabbing. And, as someone fairly new to the workforce, I see the value of resumes in general. Worthwhile experience, skills and education are your foot in the door. An inishgtful blog, at this point, is icing.
It’s important to consider your audience. For example, a contact of mine suggesting I alter the hot pink accent text on my resume to something darker and “more serious” to apply to nonprofits or similar organizations. While pink fit my personality and the creative agencies I applied to, it was inappropriate for more tranditional companies.
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This blog is to share my recruiting experiences and discuss thoughts on the job market, PR industry and technology.
Alison Kenney is an independent PR practitioner with more than 15 years of PR consulting experience.
Adam Singer (September 29th, 2008)
I’m not sure what I think about these. They could merely have hired a designer to make them.
Don’t get me wrong — VERY cool stuff. I still do not see what a resume, whether creative or standard proves.
What to me stands out is having a great blog, or awesome case studies. That is proof positive. I dont think resumes prove much in the marketing/PR world.
With that said, these are attention getters for sure.