A more vivid case for making résumés visual occurred to me: Suppose someone told you that tomorrow you would have 60 seconds in which to convince a hiring manager to hire you, in person, with whatever props you want. Would you go in there and read to him or her from your work history? Of course not. You'd go in there with pictures, screen shots, maybe a laptop with a demo on it. Your résumé has the same goal, and should be presented similarly.
On the other hand, I found a thread on this topic over at Edward Tufte's site, and many - including Tufte himself - don't like this idea, and think that it's dangerous to break from the résumé status quo. I disagree, naturally. Once I have mine done, I'll run it by my HR contacts and see what they think.
A few more random notes on this work... First, a graphical representation of my education:
It's certainly more compact than the corresponding text would be, though it's not as, well, designy as I'd like. Also, I wonder at this point in my career if anyone - or at least, anyone who didn't go to Virginia Tech or the University of Virginia - cares at all about any aspect of my education other than the fact that I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science. All the more reason to present that information efficiently.
Labels: design, resume, visualization