Published by marco on
I am in no way looking for a new job. I’m very happy at Encodo. However, I hadn’t updated my project list or resume format since 2002. I’d also seen a lot of resumes cross my desk when we were hiring last year, with some good ideas and some bad. I wanted to try out some ideas I had to improve formatting, legibility and information density/comprehensibility.
There were a few main areas that I thought I could improve in the “standard” resume format.
I’ve got a strong first draft, but I’ll be tweaking it again after letting it sit for a bit. You can check out the current version here: Resume 06.2016 (PDF)
What problems am I trying to solve?
I’ve come up with some ideas for answering these questions at a glance, using a combination of responsive text and charts.
Armed with these ideas, I came up with a responsive set of CSS styles. On top of that, the print styles are configured to create a very pleasing printout, in both portrait (PDF) and landscape.
Since I started programming in 1985 (more or less), I started all of my timelines with that year. To the left, you can see a full-width version of techniques and languages, with the legend and main title to the left of the two charts. To the right, you can see that the responsive, highly compressed version is still very legible and useful, with title and legend above. The intensity of the color in the bar indicates skill level, so you can make sense of the chart even if the legend has scrolled out of sight.
The projects timeline is very similar, starting at the same year so that all charts are consistent. As indicated above, the overlap and coloring/striping nicely shows simultaneity and roles. The legend is again to the left.
I’m not quite yet perfectly happy with the striping because it’s more difficult to see which roles are actually involved in a project, but it’s a start. In the closeup, you see the coloring a bit better, but without the legend, it’s much harder to remember what’s what. Still, it’s pretty and formats quite well, even for mobile devices.
So, as of June 2016, I’m more of less up-to-date with my work history. Not only that, but because the format is very declarative and uses semantic HTML, I have much more incentive to keep it up-to-date.