How to create resumes that go VIRAL!

Leverage technology and the power of social networks to make your CV stand out from the clutter. Find out how others are doing it!

A well-drafted resume is a potent tool used by professionals to find that elusive dream job.

What’s ironic though is that while the nature of jobs and technology has changed rapidly, the plain old two to three page resume is still used by a majority of job seekers.

With social media becoming an integral part of our lives and employers increasingly looking at online profiles before the hiring decision is made, there is a clear need to project your experience and skills better.

This is where visual mediums like Prezi and Vizify come into play.

If you are ready to take charge of your personal brand and project it with a punch, read on.

Advice for students

These platforms give you the freedom to express, which makes up for your lack of experience.

You can showcase your various activities and projects, creatively.

Typically, a visual works best for those in creative and expression-based industries such as advertising, media, design, animation, publishing, product management and technology.

It is, however, slowly gaining recognition in mainstream jobs, too.

The author, Sunder Ramachandran, is a Senior Training Manager with Jardine Lloyd Thompson India. You can tweet him @sundertrg

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Prezi

This is a cloud-based presentation software that enables you to communicate your ideas in the form a story using visuals and videos while zooming in on important pieces of information.

To get started, visit http://prezi.com/prezume/ and you can choose any of the readily usable templates or create your own as well.

Once ready, it can be sent to prospective employers as URLs or perhaps even replacing a conventional resume.

You can check out several presume samples at http://prezi.com/explore/prezumes-and-portfolios/

Vizify

This is a visual platform to project your personal brand.

It picks up key content from your profile details on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and gives you a graphical profile in just a few minutes.

It’s important to remember that as you make changes to your personal data and content on your social media sites, the vizify profile will also change.

To see some sample profiles visit https://www.vizify.com

You can also view your twitter story in the form of a video on Vizify.

If you have a Twitter account, check it out at https://www.vizify.com/twitter-vide

Here, Harish Shankaran, Product Manager, Metalworks-R&D wing of MaxusGlobal tells us how a visual resume worked in his favour.

You can view Harish’s visual resume @ http://resume.oxygenflow.net

Tell us about your visual resume…

My first visual resume was made in MS Paint and constituted stick figures. I uploaded it on to SlideShare as a part of a contest. To date, it has 9074 views and 352 downloads!

For my next one I taught myself to draw, got a better understanding of typography and designing content. The result was a resume in the form of a graphic novel. It has garnered around 676 Facebook Likes.

Did it help you find a good job?

Yes! The stick figure resume caught the eye of Amit Ranjan, CEO of SlideShare, and I was offered a job with them as a Product Manager.

The graphic novel resume, got me multiple leads, freelance gigs and my current job!

Why a visual resume?

A typical resume can only impress someone, who is specifically looking at it.

On the other hand, a vivid piece of content, dispersed socially, could potentially turn heads.

It simply increases the probabilities of finding the most suitable job there is, for you.

Was it challenging to conceptualise and design?

Choosing the offbeat path usually is. The content you create has to be unique, and more importantly, be a representation of you.

So the question is -- how can you keep talking about yourself and yet make it relevant and engaging for people who might not even know you?

Tips to create your visual resume

• Organise all your resume-related information (you can use the traditional resume for this).
• Keep all the images that you want to use ready in a folder.
• Keep logos of companies you may have worked for ready as well.
• Photos representing career highlights.
• Give links to blogs and other social media content.
• Give links to any videos that you may want to showcase.

Remember that with a visual resume ‘less is more’ and a ‘picture is worth a thousand words’.

So, keep this in mind while designing your profile.

The resume continues to evolve, perhaps more rapidly than ever.

No one style will work for every situation.

In creating a visual resume, your possibilities are only limited by your imagination.