February 21, 2011

CV as dashboard

A few weeks ago I read on HackerNews a story about one designer, who made his/her CV as infographic artwork. This idea inspired me to create my own resume in a form of QlikView dashboard. So, I spent 3 hours to create QlikView application, that visualize my experience, education and some skills. As it appeared rather good to me, I decided to test the idea by publishing it on LinkedIn in QlikView group (link).
The response has surpassed my expectations. I've got a lot of very good and encouraging comments from people all around the globe. I've also got some mails from recruiters and potential employers, but this time without any result (not having US/EU work permit is a huge obstacle). Two weeks in a row LinkedIn had been indicating me as top influencing person in the group. The CV was also published as Creative CV #19 on www.globalrecruitingroundtable.com.

While it was almost a joke, I think the idea has some reason behind it. A random resume looks like typical poorly designed BI report -- too much text, small font, and sometimes, too much formatting. At the same time, every recruiter needs only some key facts and figures from a resume in order to make a decision -- whether to continue with it or throw it into waste basket. Clean and accurate visualization of these key facts and figures could make their life easier.

(click to enlarge)