Building a Better Resume for Developers

I think if everyone looks at their resume, they'll find it to be pretty generic - heading, summary of skills, experience education, misc etc, and that's fine if you're after a more traditional job where you go through a large HR department.

However, if you really do want to stand out, he has some good points. For example, the timeline would look good if you made your resume in landscape mode, then added some kind of matrix or graph of skills (I don't like his skills visualization). The first page could be the "dashboard view", while the second one could include lots of text to describe in detail what's on the first one.

The purpose of a resume is to score an interview; this resume almost seems like it's trying to replace an interview.

I think the problem is better addressed on each side of the equation. The applicant should strive to write a non-superfluous resume and the reader should improve their skimming skills. I don't see how adding another step to the process would save time.

I think that looks quite cool, particularly the timeline view. While I'm not sure I would present my CV in such a way to a prospective employer, I might include a link. It would be interesting if there were a way to take that data and use it to generate custom CVs for each job; i.e. where you pick and choose the relevant data and it generates an outline CV for you.

If you get a 404, try looking at the CV he's created here: http://www.coderscv.com/timeline/Ben-Northrop.htm

A pretty nice idea, and I'm impressed... but damn, it could look a bit prettier.

404 not found, and bennorthrop.com redirects to lunarpages.com. Mirror?

I love the format. But would I use the app?

No way.

I want this data on my own website so that an employer can see it in the context of other information I am providing.

If the author had provided a resource I could use to effortlessly put this on my own site, I would have been overjoyed.

Now I have to go to the trouble of figuring out how to implement something similar myself - and customized to my own visual style - something the current site does not allow.

I did not think it necessary for Mr Northrop to use the "political third person" when referring to the employer instead of the more common 'he' or 'they' --

"She can quickly get a picture of who you are and what you know, and then drill in for more detail when she sees something interesting."