Interactive Resume
rleonardi.com
rleonardi.com
Beyond that, I feel like this guy just might be looking for companies that are willing to take 60 seconds out of looking through a stack of nearly-identical paper resumes to indulge something a bit different. Maybe this is his way of filtering out companies who would "skip this applicant" because he didn't send in a .pdf resume with a list of buzzwords. And of course this isn't the simplest way to get across the information in a resume... that would just be a well-designed text resume. He's trying to flex his skills and show you what he's capable of, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that he understands that this is not the single most efficient way to get that information across.
On the other hand maybe writing resume presentations is his favorite home hobby.
That would certainly be an interesting parallel with startup employers' expectations of programmers, who are supposed to craft github repos at home in their spare time to get hired. Really, this is the design equivalent.
A+ for a solid advertisement for himself.
The point of the hiring process is not to compare paper candidates, but to compare human beings.
As the information was scrolling through my screen, I found it difficult to read but I didn't want to release the down arrow key because I wanted to be done with it.
Just my experience. My 'UX' experience, unfortunately.
it took 3 seconds w/ cold for me to see the instructions. I scrolled through the experience like I would a normal page (albeit translated to left and right.)
worked fine.
while not my cup of tea, I'm not a visual person, this seemed well done.
While this is clever, unfortunately what it does is make the job of getting the candidate's details harder. Say I have a pile of resumes and what not on my desk, and this. I want to compare them. Easy with the pile of 2 page resumes and attached portfolios, but with this I have to muck on a computer, trying to make out various bits and bobs, then even note them down myself so that I can compare. In fact, I clicked twice and gave up.
People have suggested this is a great way for a designer to show case skills. But IMHO, this is a colossal disaster. What it has does is allow design to get in the way of the content, and worse still, make the content less accessible. Yes, very cute, flashy, clever and skilled, but it shows that the so called designer has failed to understand what the point of design is. Design is supposed to facilitate, NOT make things harder. If it make life harder, it has failed. Does it make the recruiters job easier? No. Does it facilitate the passing on of vital information? No. Clever skills, but a design failure.
Really, I fully understand and appreciate that hackers appreciate the raw skills, and so we should, but I don't think people have their hiring HR heads on, and have also forgotten the basic point of design.
Sorry to swim against the tide here, but given a pile of competent resumes, I'd probably skip this applicant.
I applied for a marketing job at a fire safety firm. I'd never worked under a marketing job title (business development was my background) so I needed to differentiate.
I burned off the bottom of my cover letter with some cheesy line like 'let me set your marketing on fire'. Got the interview.
2. Add to resume pile
Done! This situation should never occur on your behalf:
Say I have a pile of resumes and what not on my desk, and this.
It's an extra step in the process for the hiring bod, the resume should come before this.
Also first time load on IE, Chrome and Firefox did this:
http://i.imgur.com/Wn62Rh4.png
At first I thought this was some cryptic "why the lucky stiff" malarky.
Only after hitting refresh did the site load properly, I almost closed the tab, he might not be so lucky with someone who is a little less patient or in a rush.
And finally what happens if the site goes down or gets slashdot/hn/reddited?
Don't get me wrong, this is a nice demo of this person's skills (except for the use of the down arrow key to navigate right which is a minor usability foible) but it's a portfolio work and shouldn't be used solely as employer first contact when applying for a post.
It would be great to have that many eyes on my resume.
I've been stuck with many piles of resumes and to have this show up would not only be a breath of fresh air vs the prototypical format, I GUARANTEE I would be talking about this one.
Even if I didn't hire the person, I would be showing people this resume around the office.
</$0.02>
Anyway, I really like it. No, it's not perfect—he loses some points for listing Dreamweaver as a skill—but it's good fun, and it certainly makes him stand out.
What tweaked the nose of my bete-noir was the entry of HTML and CSS under "Scripting and Programming languages" - but I think it's fair to say he knows what he's doing, seriously impressive design work going on there.
For many of us who code, however, it really hurts to see someone misclassify nearly anything.
I'd be willing to bet that he knows the difference and simply decided to simplify his resume by pretending he didn't.
In all seriousness, I thought it was not only an awesome idea, but extremely well executed.
First, you seem to be missing the actual point of a resume. No one makes decisions on who to HIRE based on a resume. The point of a resume is to get an INTERVIEW. Your resume could actually lack any details of the normal stuff that goes on one (education, experience, skills, etc) - but as long as what you provide gets you that interview then it's done its job. As someone who's done interviewing at interactive agencies, if I saw this I'd probably set up an interview.
The second is your assumption about the purpose of a resume's design. Your thinking lies all on the company's side - making things easier for the recruiter and facilitating understanding of the reader; allow me to offer an alternate line of thinking. In an interview, it's not just the company determining if it wants to hire the prospect; it's also the prospect determining if she/he wants to work at that company. This resume has taken that to a step earlier. This person is purposely making his resume more creative and "difficult" to weed out prospective employers that don't value those things (this is actually something I do as well, though not to this extent). This person obviously wants to work for a very specific type of company and doesn't want to waste his time interviewing at companies that don't match his desire (like companies that use recruiters or where resumes go directly to HR people instead of hiring managers). So I'd argue that the design of his resume is specifically working very well at weeding out places where he wouldn't want to work and attracting the attention of places he would like to work.
Point two. That is frankly so convoluted, I can only assume you just want to oppose what Im saying, but honestly don't know why.
Point two - how is it convoluted that a person would want to target his resume to a specific type of company? Customizing your resume for the company you want to work for is the first basic principle in writing a resume. He just does it in such a way to also exclude companies he wouldn't want to work for.
P2. Same again. You are making up yet another scenario.
They are not different scenarios at all. Just because I didn't use the exact same words to describe them doesn't mean I'm not describing the same concept.
Customizing your design to target the employers you want is the equivalent of customizing your design to weed out the employers you do not want. His design is meant to weed out employers that do not value the same things he does; this means his design is meant to attract the employers that do value the same things he does. These things are equivalent and they are the same concept described in both posts.
You are the confused person here.
Design isn't meant to facilitate understanding in all cases. You're letting one specific use cloud your understanding of a general concept.
Designers design with specific aims in mind. These could be expression of content, ease of use for a specific culture, expression of a feeling, wow factor, or rigid conformity to a set style/concept, etc.
Do you believe that somebody that simply wrote in a black-and-white grid that they are proficient at beautiful animated interactive designs is proving this ability with the same authenticity as this guy was able to?
Resume 1:
Beauty: 10/10
Animation: 9/10
Interactivity: 7/10
Resume 2:
A time investment in creating something that shows this.
The aim of this resume is like all other resumes, to get an interview. If not, its not a resume, its part of a portfolio.
Last point relies on making that comparison in the first place, which is a straw man. No reason to compare like that. Its your own invention.
So what you're saying is that: a resume exists to get an interview (1), and therefore if it's not a resume and is a portfolio (3) it therefore does not exist to get an interview (2)?
Fact: resumes exist to get interviews.
Fact: portfolios also exist to get interviews.
Fact: a resume can have the form of a portfolio piece and vice versa.
The resume is a terrible way of validating ability. I would prefer a portfolio piece of a designer, or a repository of a developer to their resume.
>> Last point relies on making that comparison in the first place, which is a straw man. No reason to compare like that. Its your own invention.
I disagree. The intention of sending a resume in this form is likely to be that you want to be judged on the merits of the format you chose and the skills it required. Your original implication that they want to be judged with the same criteria as a black-and-white grid is almost certainly false.
I see you like to play it fast and loose with the meaning of words. A quick review:
A résumé is a document used by persons to present their backgrounds and skills. A typical résumé contains a summary of relevant job experience and education.
An artist's portfolio is an edited collection of their best artwork intended to showcase an artist's style or method of work
-- Wikipedia
In summary, a resume cannot be a portfolio, and vica versa, because a resume is an executive summary while a portfolio is a showcase.
1. At no point do either of your definitions mention that the properties or terms are mutually exclusive.
2. You made a comparison between a resume and a portfolio, as opposed to a resume and a portfolio piece. The difference is crucial because the definition you provided mentioned the word collection - and because the "interactive resume" couldn't have been considered a collection of portfolio pieces.
3. In real life words often don't have such rigid boundaries. and thank god because otherwise the portfolio-resume would only be able to be discussed by people that have property-level understanding of the world and you would be the slack-jawed fool of the conversation.
From parent comment:
>There seems to be some confusion between a resume and a portfolio.
What possible ethical reasons do you have for trying to insure the purity of resumes and portfolios? Why can they not interbreed?
Portfolios authentically demonstrate ability in a way resumes cannot, hence either resumes should direct employers to portfolios or the designer should attempt to blur the forms (yes, the purpose of a design might be to add trustworthy information to a document in the form of visible proof of experience in the medium. As shown: an exchange of message clarity for message trustworthiness.)
If the "vital information" is "how many years of experience in software X does this person have?", you are correct. But why should that be the information you care about?
If the information is "can this person make nice graphics and do amazing things in a browser?", yes, it does. It both gives the information and demonstrates its veracity.
>> given a pile of competent resumes, I'd probably skip this applicant.
Given the pile of companies who will think this is awesome, the creator will probably skip those who don't.
>> Say I have a pile of resumes and what not on my desk, and this. I want to compare them
I agree that the "pile of text" or "page of images" resumes will not be easy to directly compare to this person's. But does that really matter? The resumes are there so you can move on to an interview, right? Aren't you convinced that this person is fun and has great skills? I certainly am.
Obviously this would not replace an actual resume for the purposes you need.
The best candidate I have ever interviewed (unfortunately, we didn't end up hiring him, but not for the lack of effort from our side) came to the interview with examples of his code and explained what his code does and why he did it this way. Everybody loved that. Unfortunately, almost nobody does it.
Having a place where the candidate shows what he can do - prior to the interview - is awesome, plain and simple. It immediately removes a whole layer of questions for the decision maker - you know who you're talking to, what they are capable of, how they prefer to do it at some level, etc. - and makes the decision much easier to make and less risky.
Almost nobody does it because it's not expected. Why not ask future applicants to bring in some code samples and walk through it?
So far I've seen "you can't print this out!" (who cares?) and "some of the transitions could be smoother!"
This one is my favorite:
"This isn't a one-page form. It's not going to fit on my desk. I'm going to pass on this candidate."
Seriously people? You think this guy doesn't have a hard copy of his resume? Your goal is to hire a talented candidate. This exercise demonstrates talent, and was created for exposure. Not optimization of communication in the form of a one-page CV that will end up decomposing on some hiring manager's desk that doesn't have the decency to reply to candidates he or she will not be hiring.
I mean its not like he wasn't getting the job.
I recall Mike Acton basically saying in an interview that if an applicant claimed expert knowledge of C or C++, the gloves came off during the interview--Acton is one of (possibly the?) head tech bros as Insomniac Games, and has done a lot of work dealing with such arcane things as using the Cell SPUs optimally. I would not want to take on that challenge in an interview unwittingly.
1 - I've heard of it ... 9 - literally wrote the book ... 10 - invented it
so by that measure guido _should_ have rated himself a 10.
Sidenote - I'm curious how one could rate him/herself as a JavaScript 'expert' but only 'proficient' in jQuery. Not impossible, but seems unusual.
To the GP - if you think of it like a game controller you don't have to continuously keep swiping - just drg your finger lowky through the "levels"
a) making a statement and getting eyeballs is not always a good thing—a lot depends what kind of statement it is and how exactly eyeballs were attracted.
b) understanding when you shouldn't do something just because you can is a very big plus for a creative person. Alas, this resume shows the extreme lack of it.
He's identifying himself as fitting into a certain culture of organization. Some of the comments here are a perfect example! Anyone that criticizes this as "inefficient" or that it's "making getting the details difficult" is missing the point. He doesn't want a soul-dead HR minion to find his details.
I was sorely disappointed also because I am excited by the idea of interactive display of content, but this isn't it. An interactive resume could, for example, summarize experience and skills briefly, and offer easy access to more detail and portfolio examples. And, of course, scrolling through non-interactive content (using up and down to go left and right, no less) isn't the greatest example of "interactive".
The transition out of the water is a bit jarring...
https://github.com/philipithomas/cv-philipithomas (It's deprecated - link to live is no longer accurate)
I'm in the process of trying to reinvent it. Here's the current iteration:
https://www.philipithomas.com/resume/
It's an ongoing project, but I think that either using a static site generator or javascript templates. I'm also planning on incorporating navigation like I used on this project:
Which points to the problem with this sort of thing. A lot of the design work here is stellar, sure, but that doesn't matter. You've already lost the job to the guy with the dead-tree resume.
Still a cool project though.
That's a lot of mental activity. Whereas a quick traditional resume gives information in text and is easier to spot. Then if recruiter wants to see the profilo, say his github personal page, sure, a link.
the interactive resume, itself is a showcase of his skills.
As a programmer how about me drawing a state diagram as an interactive resume? I have to follow a decision path and it's damn time consuming.
I think part of his resume is broken in Firefox too.
LOADING MASTER EXPERT PROFICIENT FAMILIAR BEGINNER DESIGN ILLUSTRATION CODE ANIMATION Multidisciplinary Designer LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 N B A F A N Sports Fan Live and Work in New York City Scroll down mouse or press keyboard's down-arrow to move forward Swipe from right to left to move forward Interactive Resume of BEGINNER FAMILIAR
Rather than bash it though, I'll give some constructive criticism.
1. I noticed a few glitches during the tour. As the guy runs through the world, some of the effects lagged, and didn't display the parts of the resume/portfolio that it was suppose to.
Once I ran back and forwards through the level multiple times, only then did they displayed correctly.
2. With this being interactive, it kind of distracts from actually looking at the resume itself. I felt myself more concerned with progressing through the world, than actually looking at the qualifications.
3. The controls would have been better if it were <- and -> to move the guy. Pressing up and down is a bit strange, as I think most people prefer using a keyboard over their mouse to go through this.
Pros:
1. Very Creative, and cool idea.
2. Refreshing take on a resume/portfolio.
3. Shows off your design and coding skills.
4. It's unique.
Cons:
1. Probably not the best way to convey your information to possible employers.
2. Controls are a bit weird.
3. Not all the animations worked off the bat, and were delayed (I had to run through the level multiple times before it worked).
Suggestion:
I think if you're going to do an interactive resume/portfolio, you should just make it into an actual video game. Simple one level game where the user unlocks parts of your information as they progress through the level.
However, I think you should include at the bottom of the page or something, a link to a normally structured resume and portfolio as well, for people that may not have time to do the interactive/game thing.
Closing Point:
You've got a lot of negative, and positive feedback from your post. Don't let yourself be discouraged, but also be willing to listen and use this feedback to do it better, and adapt/change things where needed.
Good luck with your ventures!
In the USA a CV is often seen as distinct from a resume. They are used amongst academics and high-skill professionals to show an individuals full career history, with emphasis on education and publications.
It can be interchangeable with a resume, but it may not be.
How difficult would it be for you to allow printing in a resume format (hidden div with info, activated using the CSS print layout option???) At least then there is the option of printing your resume from this page directly. You might even be able to provide a link in the corner of the page to activate printing. Just an idea. Good Luck!
I assume the site was taken down because of the traffic spike. Apparently Totally Reliable Web Hosting and Unlimited Bandwidth can only go so far.
Non-technical guy. I would love to try this out. It is attention grabbing. I have used bobble heads, cakes with my sales proposals to get into the door. Corny, but stuff like this works. I sent Robbie a message. If anyone else knows how to do this or something similar please message me.
PS : Again .. I am looking at this from a Recruiter's perspective
But 1) This is solid show of skill 2) He should/can simulatenously maintain a simple version.
(1) Fix the spelling of After Effects.
(2) You might want to reverse the order of jobs so that the most recent is listed first, since that is what recruiters will be most interested in seeing.
(3) The text within your job description boxes can be tightened to highlight your specific contributions and their impact.
But still, the overall charm more than made up for it and my day has been made slightly better. :)
user interface experience ( ) master ( ) proficient ( ) beginner (x) antagonistically counter-intuitive and user-unfriendly
It's unstated actions that have to be intuitive, but this page outright explains the only action required.
Nothing counter-intuitive or unfriendly here.
My suggestion: in addition to space-moves-you-forward and shift+space-moves-you-backwards keyboard controls, you should also give this functionality to the left and right arrow keys. Good luck!
In the interview or pre-interview they may ask for samples of your work. be more creative then.
scrollable has a 'non-limited' feel in my mind, continuous translation allowed , as in google maps. A stream is more a one dimensional idea, and here you get 2 streams, sometimes vertical, sometimes horizontal, but you can't go everywhere by combining both.
Nice idea, but would still want something on paper in a relatively conformable format.
The placement is a bit off though - it's in an early important placement, and arbitrarily dividing up sets of skills. His personality is also well shown by the style of the resume itself!
Also, is it just me that is irritated by the vertical style of the "skills" graphs at the start and then the horizontal style when underwater? Was confused what I was looking at for a moment there.
Too bad the HR department would never hear my side of the argument.