May 132010
 

Who needs to design a fancy portfolio, or take to the streets dropping off resumes galore, when you can just pander to the vanity of the people you want to work for.

Clever, Alec Brownstein, very clever.

(via)

 

I like to have a nice, neat look to my resumé or CV, whenever I need one, but I have always focused on the content, not spending too much time on how it is displayed. So long as the information fits, the fonts are clear, and everything lines up, I’ll call it good.

I think I may have to rethink that. I’ve recently come across two posts that detail infographic style resumés, and some of them have just blown me away.

Apparently, this is one of the first of the genre, by Michael Anderson:

Click on it, to see it full-size, or just take a little snippet, like the bottom, left-hand corner:

I can’t say that it adds anything to the “professional experience” or the “education and awards” aspect of a traditional resumé, but it sure gives me a great sense of the guy.

Since then, there’s been a relative explosion in the style. A lot of people seem influenced by the original, above. Others are doing interesting things with timelines and subway maps, as well as all the various forms of graphs.

But look at this Cthulhu of a resumé:

It’s by Gabriele Bozzi. Again, click on it, if you’d like to see it full-size. I think if you were sending an 11×17 resumé for some reason, this might work really impressively, but on my screen, at least, it’s too difficult to follow and make sense of. I definitely get a sense of a detail-oriented person, however.

There are plenty more examples, but I don’t want to give a whole overview of them here — two other people have already dont that. Check out the 18 compiled by Randy Krum at Cool Infographics. Or, Javier Tordable, a software engineer at Google, who goes through a few from other people before creating his own with interactive Google tools.

Amazing work. Guess I’d better dust up my skills!

Mar 162010
 

You know how sometimes you wish that you could get paid to do nothing?  Then you sigh and head into work, knowing that never in a million years would someone pay you to sit on your couch, eat Doritos and watch daytime TV. 

Guess what?  You’re wrong.

Proactol Ltd is advertising a position for a professional couch potato:

Proactol Ltd is currently looking to grow their established team by hiring a Product Testing Associate to trial their clinically tested natural fat binder in the real world.

Whether your day to day life consists of doing the school run’s, catching up on Facebook, visiting friends/family or just relaxing in front of the television; join the Proactol team and your life won’t have to change a single bit.

We are offering a competitive salary and benefits package for the right candidate to continue doing EXACTLY what they do every single day, and all we ask in return is that you eat 16% more calories a week – or approximately 400 more calories a day – whilst introducing the fat binder Proactol into your diet.

I can do that.  So can you.  But, like any other job advertisement, this position requires a certain skill set.

The ideal candidate should:

  • Not already be on a diet but eat a healthy balance of carbohydrates, fats and proteins
  • Be prepared to increase their existing calorie intake by 16% a week. This could be achieved by eating fatty foods such as Chinese takeaways, fish and chips, pizza or burgers.

So far, so good.  As far as I understand it, Proactol wants to pay me to eat a bunch of fatty foods, take their supplement and not do a whole lot else.  What do I get out of this other than potential weight gain and an increased risk of heart attack? 

Remuneration

  • Your basic salary will be £23,750 a year
  • 365 day holiday – other than the weekly catch-up’s, every day will be a holiday in this job as you will get paid to be you!

Let’s see…at this moment, that translates into $36,583.36 Canadian.  Not bad.

I wonder if they’ll consider people already employed.  I mean, eating more doesn’t seem to be a bad way to supplement an income….