Trying to make sense of it all in education
Does an infographic reflect me?
So I have spent a few minutes using some infographic resume sites which all pull data from my own personal linkdin site. Let me share the initial outcomes
Spoken language map from visualize.me
1) visualize.me
Here is my personal infographic resume from this site - http://vizualize.me/neilcommons?r=neilcommons
This is my favourite of the three offerings. I like the timeline representing my educational and working lifetimes in parallel. My interests, and crucially the scaling of them is fascinating. As seen on the diagram when my own limited language skills are represented on a world map they seem far more impressive than they really are.
Skills and specialty proficiency from cvgram.me
2) cvgram.me
Here is my personal infographic resume from this site - http://cvgram.me/neilcommons
I think that there is a great deal of interesting extracted information but the proficiency and frequency of use source information presently does not well reflect me. For instance the statement of having only one year of science skills does not well represent my life time of scientific pursuit. In fact it only reflects when I updated linkdin so I need to look at how I can change that information.
Employment timeline from re.vu
3) re.vu
Here is my personal infographic resume from this site - http://re.vu/neilcommons
There is just not enough information on this site. There is only a employment timeline and two large icons showing my university qualifications. So simply there is just not enough information there to justify it’s existence.
So, as I mentioned before, I instantly warm to the visualize.me version and feel it reflects me the most – and considering that they all come from the same information this really does emphasise the power of visual representation. For me I felt they effectively highlighted the gaps. For instance there was no reflection of my voluntary history which I feel represents a large part of my life so this needs to be somehow rectified.
So to wrap up I am going to recognise the power of infographics they promote an emotive response to information and when we are talking about trying to get someone to give you a job this can only be a good thing – if done correctly.
Do I think these tools are great – yes. Am I glad that I am not presently looking for a job and have at least a year to work on these – yes. So will I be using these tools to help me get my next job – BIG YES.
Thanks for the article. As co-founder of re.vu, I can’t help but think you’ve done a drive-by test. The LinkedIn profile import that, as you report, rightly populates a timeline and education, is a starting point. Not an ending point.
The objective is to tell your career story. If you don’t know what that story is, simply rely on a tool to regurgitate your LinkedIn profile, you will not get a good result.
Also, it seems a little odd to me that you chose not to avail yourself of the 12 other infographic widgets, portfolio tool, customization of themes and backgrounds before publishing your story.
If you would like a consultation on how to create your visual career story, I’m happy to engage with you and help you tell your story through re.vu.
First of all WOW, a comment from a co-founder of a new piece of technology brilliance. I along with probably all other people doing our course would be very impressed with a response from higher than us. Thank you Mike.
Second, all of these tools look impressive visually and are remarkably easy to use. I wonder if they will ever be used as a stand alone tool. Right now in this day and age having this as part of a professional portfolio would clearly paint a picture of an ability to use technology. Right now these infographics would still need to be part of a portfolio that invites its readers to dive further into your/our employment history.
I think they are useful and initially impressive but I am not one who has had to search through 340 cv’s to fill ONE teaching position. I would love to hear or get feedback from employers, especially principals and HR managers about how these might affect decisions in relation to hiring.
Every little trick helps when trying to find the perfect job and I believe that these inforgraphics are an interesting addition, I don’t think they can form the whole picture.