Visual Resume

Before completing this assignment, I’ve never heard of a Visual Resume. Being slightly familiar with the traditional resume I never thought they could ever be colorful, graphically advanced, and extremely visually appealing. I believe that Visual Resumes bring an exciting twist to the boring, traditional method however I do not find them to be productive unless applying for a Graphic Design position.

Upon completing this assignment, I found it pretty difficult. I had to sketch the design for my Visual Resume much more extensively than any other assignment for this class. Given the instructions, I found it to be most difficult trying organize which graphics I would use for each section of the Resume. Once figuring out which graphic would go where, I used the application InDesign to transfer my sketches into the computer using skills I’ve learned in Digital Communications this semester.

For this assignment, there were 4 requirements that I chose:

1. A categorization graphic
2. An explanation graphic
3. A table
4. A graph

1) For the categorization graphic, I chose to create an organization map to highlight my skills and qualities. I made sure to utilize straight lines, branches and organized, linear visuals to best display my ideas.

2) For the explanation graphic, I chose to use a timeline that showed my prior and current education. I differentiated my high school education from my college education by using different colors and also used a dotted line to represent that my college education is not yet finished.

To add additional information, I chose to add another explanation graphic representing qualitative data. For this graphic, I used a map that identified where in the whole I have studied at a university level. Studying in the United States, Italy, and Spain, I believe that a visual resume would be able to highlight these best and compliment my major in Global Communications.

1. For the table, I chose to share my work experience, volunteering experience, and extracurricular activities. I organized this chart by paid and non-paid participation.

1. For the last part, a graph I chose to highlight my language skills. I organized a bar graph that had three levels on the y-axis. These levels included “Fluent/Native,” “Conversational,” and “Basic.” On the x-axis, I included English, as well as two languages I have studied here at Roger Williams University: Spanish and German.

Creating the Visual Resume, it took a lot longer and much more effort than I anticipated however it challenged me to return to everything I’ve learned this semester and attempt to apply each aspect in one document.