Infographic Resume? infoNOPE

Look at any new design grad or “creative resume” blog post and you’ll find a plethora of random infographic style resumes with doodles, charts, and big type that really don’t show much about the designer or their work experience. So while they’re visually *cool* they aren’t really all that successful at the purpose of a resume, showing your design chops… in the way they’re supposed too…

I thankfully never did that. Sure I did plenty of other faux pas as a young designer. This is one I never did, somehow. (Lets not talk about my cupcake truck site… because cupcakes!)

What I did do, was something similar, I created an infographic cover letter. While it wasn’t entirely successful in the purpose of a cover letter, it did start a conversation and show a little glimpse of my skills and outside of the box thinking. I actually still use it today for some of the more laid back and non-traditional roles I’ll apply for. Such as an infographic specific freelance role or something along those lines.

Doing something different and interesting  has it’s time and place in the job hunt, but at the end of the day, a resume is not the place (unless you’re doing something REALLY different, typically more than pixels on the screen and an email) most people want to see a nicely designed resume but at the end of the day it should still look like a resume.

I’d love to hear if you have done something different and it’s been successful.