i knew i forgot to list something on my resume... all those pumpkin carving awards would have got me better offers

Jessie Zenor, nice work. keep it up.

thanks, i appreciate it. i am really just curious what people will come up with on the investigation of what the resume should look like. I am really tired of the regular resumes.

I think you mean to replace "should" with "could"...

...as our employers determine "should"

i'm in need of a revamp, but mine will be all webfolio, if by some miracle lletdownl and i are done with it, we'll submit

I like this idea alot.

your resume is very creative. The sloppyness adds to it more than anything. Keep this going.

is that a resume or a ransom note?

Sorry I can't resist posting this because it is such serendipity that I saw two such similar graphs in the space of 20 minutes:



I have mixed feelings about tricky resumes. The one you linked to, Jessie, is memorable, but I can't read it well enough/don't want to take time to right now to know whether I would hire someone based on it or not. More later on this topic, it's late for me now.

Postal - I agree. Should was the wrong word. Could is the right word. I really hope you are able to submit it.

Liberty Bell- That chart is great. I am not sure that memorable is the right goal here. Maybe it is. I have been told a few things about my resume. Like that it was hard to read. It is meant to be in a print form. Something that I mail to people. So it is a bit easier to read. But you are right. The agenda of making a resume like what I did has to be understood. See below for my agenda.

Not to anyone in particular - And for me... the chart format that I used came easy to me because it was important that I showed the overlapping of events in my very young career. When I listed them in a regular format, there were so many things on there that it looked like I had changed jobs a lot. Which I really had not. They just overlapped a lot. So it was nice that I found a format that started to show that.

I am not convinced that my resume is the right format, and because I need to start adding a few more things to that, I will be reworking it a bit.

I am also not convinced that the conventional resume, no matter how big your left margin is or what kind of logo you have come up with your self is the only right format for a resume. It could be anything. Could you imagine handing your potential employer a beautiful piece of graphic design?

I believe that our resumes could be a way to show how we look at the work we have done, and the way we work in general. I don’t believe that the resumes that we have now reflect that in any way. I think they are just a box to be checked when getting ready to find a job.

Resumes, which are something that are so telling of where we have been, seem to get neglected, when the portfolios, with the invention of good image editing and layout programs, have been excelling in their quality and innovation.

So, the question is, why have we neglected to really think about why we format our resumes the way we do?

These are the questions I wanted to start asking with this online exhibition.

My psychotherapist once made me do a chart very similar to your resume.

Here is why I selected "memorable" to describe your resume, Jessie. It is not uncommon for a firm to receive 20-30-40 resumes a week. In my old firm, which was only 25 people, there were months near graduation time when we would see 8-10 envelopes a day with resumes.

For convenience sake, it might be easier for one of the people reviewing resumes to say "Let's talk to the woman with the chart resume." to one of the other four people reviewing resumes: as soon as your resume has a trick that makes it easy to describe, it might be memorable to people looking for ANYTHING to grab onto from a pile of similar qualifications.

This can also be a bad thing, of course. But I think as long as your "trick" is well-done, it is a good thing. We had a "resume" once, and this is fairly common in fresh grads, that was not a piece of paper but a stapled 4x4 book of graphic images of the guy's work. It was memorable enough that the principal who reviewed resumes kept it on his desk for months and would refer to it whenever a graphics discussion came up. We didn't call the guy in, as I recall, because we weren't hiring, but if we HAD been he would have been near the top of the list just for the presentation.

But again, this was a very well done and concise little booklet. I'd say your resume, Jessie, lays out the information very clearly, so it can be comprehended quickly, which is critically important to a principal who has fifteen minutes between meetings to review 10 resumes. I think the "hook" of the chart is a good idea, fun, *and* probably more appropriate to someone recently out of school than a seasoned professional.

And that answers one of your questions above: why are resumes so often uniformly formatted the way they are? because if I only have 60 seconds to scan your info from a pile of 40 pices of paper, I don't want to have to go hunting for what I'm looking for: how many years experience, skillset (software etc.), previous employers, in 15 seconds. If I can't find that info I'm likely to toss the resume aside. Harsh but true (in my experience, at least).

OK I've gone on long enough, someone please rebut everything I just said!

But I'll also add one more thing: most important is that you feel the resume is a good pice of graphic designt hat reflects who you are in the best light possible. It can be simple or tricky, doesn't matter, as long as YOU feel it is *right*. Someone who would really not like it would probably not be a good fit for you as an employer, anyway.

jessie, when i said nice work above, it was about your work in general after browsing your web site/blog and all.
i like your resume too, except i am not too crazy about cut out lettering which vado referred as ransom letter. you could handwrite it like liberty bell did hers, ummm, barfly brawls..;)
i'd hire you after seeing your resume, if i had appropriate work for you to keep you interested and collaborative. you seem like an energetic self propelled type that would get the necessary job done.
you must focus on jobs/places where you could be given some freedom to go in and investigate, document, analyse and propose action.
don't waste your time for plain cad jobs. i don't think a traditional architecture practice would be a good office for you. investigate and pick well the places, you'd be sending your resume. good luck. it is a really creative and functional resume easy to read and shows the progress and interrelationship between your activities. that is impressive and shows it comes from a well focused mind.
anyway, i'd like to see you contribute more stuff to archinect.

Liberty Bell and Orhan Ayyuce, you are both right. I need to make mine a bit cleaner, and clearer.

Orhan Ayyuce. Thanks again for the kind words. I feel I am lucky because I have a really free job. I work for a Community Design Center. I was brought on to work on one project, when i told my boss it was not enough work for me, She told me to work on what ever I wanted. I am workign really close with the graphic designer on curating an exhibit and other print work, and I am working on a house in addition to the project i was brought in on. I have the perfect job.
And as long as I finish the work that needs to be done, i can work when ever i want. I usually leave at 5 every day. Which is good, because i still do a lot of my own stuff for fun outside of work. So i have pretty much found a place I belong for a while.

So, i am not really doing this to find a job. I am really just wanting to see what people come up with, and i have been interested in curating exhibits, i thought this would be a good way to do it. Also, if i get enough good ones, it would be neat to have a gallery exhibit, if people who submit are interested

I just think it is a neat investigation. We are designers, why should we not do it. It will also give us a chance to look at the work we have done so far and force us to assess our body of work, and how we think of what we do, instead of just passively moving through this world.

Alright, enough of my rambling
liberty bell and orhan ayyuce... you guys are right on.
thanks for your comments.

oh and i might start posting more. I used to post here all the time when i was in my early years of school. Then it dropped off. I will try. :)