How important is the resume?
Many feel that it is the most important tool in the employment tool belt. Well the resume has been around a long time. I will tell you that in the United States we go by resume however it is also known as the Curriculum vitae, vita or CV, which is Latin meaning “course of life”. The French grabbed hold of the concept and called it the résumé which means “summary”. So the resume is a “summary of the course of life.” Makes sense doesn’t it?
The CV and the resume are actually written a little differently and under the surface they are supposed to be used for different settings. The resume traditionally has more of a free-form style used in the private sector and the CV has a more compact chronological style with more of a list of accomplishments, schools attended, publications, etc. and used for the academic or educational institutions.
The evolution continues thanks to technology. The ball or sphere of all of the information in the world doubles every two years. It is a huge technical snowball
speeding downhill and it just can’t be stopped. Technology has changed the footprint of how resumes are written, sent, received and presented. The concept of video resumes is lingering out there and in a previous blog post,
“T” in the 10 Key Interviewing TECHNIQUES, I discussed the need and resume in the interview process. It is sure changing whatever the history ends up to be. There is however a growing concept that many people are using in order to turn their plain black and white resume into something visually pleasing to the eye. Take this concept of
VisualCV http://www.visualcv.com/.
VisualCV is a service that takes your paper resume and makes it come alive for you to add video, graphs, pictures along with your regular content.
VisualCV has over 90,000 people that have used their service since 2/08 and growing. The user interface is extremely easy to use, it is a free service however there are upgraded options to choose from and in a few minutes you can have your cross between a video resume as a .
pdf electronic copy attached for easy sending. The business model that they have put together seems pretty solid, it provides and excellent, clean professional look and
I feel can set someone apart from their competition with this tool. I would encourage you to go to
http://www.visualcv.com/ (home page below) and experience an interactive difference maker.
Once you create your profile, it is transferable to the job boards, you can send it easily via email, put a link on your blog or on your personal web bio, or you can even throw it on all of your social media pages. How about putting the HTML link into your email signature? Not to mention, by using this you dramatically decrease the odds of getting a paper cut. On the right hand nav bar you can see an example of my visualCV. I am in the process of improving the profile however it is an excellent start.
I wish you much success in getting your foot in the door at the company of your dreams and this just might be the tool to make your size 10 a size 14.
How important is the resume?
November 2nd, 2008 at 7:13 am
This is a great post!! I love the info about the origins of the words… I didn’t know that. But do you have a VisualCV? I’d love to see if it you do.
Mine is at http://visualcv.com/kristicolvin
November 7th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I found you via the Oxford list because I liked your comment. I have college age nieces and nephew and will copy your link to them.
However, I take it that in your bold sentence, “I feel can set someone apart from there competition with this tool” you meant “their” rather than “there”?