CVs

I’ve been having to write a CV recently. Usually my portfolio is my ticket to an interview, a meeting or a placement. So this is a new territory to me. And one that I’ve realised there’s a world of opportunity.

My CV has a fairly standard look about it. A brief summary about what I’ve done, where I’ve been and what I’m about. Then the technical stuff appears, which is all neatly designed. Nothing special I might add, but enough to show I care about design and that a plain word doc just won’t do.

Well, some designers have decided to take a different approach. There are a few creative CVs I’ve seen in the last few years that have caught my attention. And three of them were very recently.

First there was Ed Hamilton who decided to make his CV in Google maps. One useful thing was that he’s travelled the world, meaning the pins look rather impressive before even being clicked on.

Everything from places of work to education, it’s all on there. And all neatly adapted to the medium.

Graeme Anthony decided to create his CV on YouTube. The perfect way to get your CV to go viral. And it helps that it's very well done. I also love the idea of techies or film makers creating a fantastic looking CV in AfterEffects and letting their skills speak for themselves.



But the most recent interesting CVs have taken the form of infographics. The great thing about these are that they’re very visual, which is very useful if, like these two, you’re a graphic designer.

What’s also nice about these is that they look completely different to each other. They’ve put their own mark creatively on their CV meaning I’m almost not looking at their CV, I want to see their work.

But that’s not all...

Ways of getting your CV out there are taking on a whole new level too. From using Google Adwords to Facebook adverts, the clever people are trying different ways to get noticed.

Of course you need to back up the seeding with some solid facts, but they’re thinking has them ahead of anyone sending in just a standard CV on spec.

For me, I use Twitter, my blog and every other social network you can (nearly) think of to feed out my content. And to me, this are my living and breathing CV. Everything I’ve done, said or thought about is in here somewhere. You just have to go looking.