To have or not to have a Visual Resume

Off late I am seeing lot of confusion around whether to have a 'Visual Resume' or not in many job seekers. Here is my take on the same;

For a lot of job seekers a resume is a well formatted static Word Document; or the same word document converted in PDF. Where they can write long and complicated sentences about what they have achieved so far in their profession and in personal life, well to some extent. These resumes are created based on a predefined template. Unfortunately the templates are not very different from each other and they look quite similar at the end of the day. And as we all know these resumes are among the first items that are being viewed by the potential employers for screening a candidate.

In today's world HR professionals receive around 800 resumes on an average for each job posting made... Now this number is by far an obnoxious one for even the most efficient HR professionals to look through each one of them. In such a scenario they try various 'Rejection criteria' to shortlist the resumes that are worth exploring further. Things like educational background, companies the candidate has worked for, candidate's tenure in each company etc. becomes the regular points for rejecting a candidate. Visual resume definitely plays an important role as an attention grabber in such a scenario.

Imagine yourself as a HR manager and you have been given a task of screening 800 resumes in a day, what would you do? Would you go through each resume in detail before selecting/rejecting a resume? No, because there is not enough time for the same and it is simply boring to go through similar looking sheets of paper or word documents of strangers who mean nothing to you. And if you suddenly spot a vibrantly hued or interestingly depicted visual resume which;

1. does not need detailed reading,

2. few seconds of screening gives you fare idea of the candidate's professional and personal achievements,

3. and the creative side of the candidate is right on your face,

Would you not shortlist the candidate for further exploration? Yes, you would.

That's exactly what visual resumes are supposed to do. "Create first impression" which may later become the "Best impression". And create curiosity among the Hiring managers and Interviewers. In fact, because of the same reason it is perceived that the candidates with visual resume are more suitable for a Telephonic interview or a Face to Face interview. Whether the candidate gets the job or not completely depends on how the interviewer interpreted the candidate and whether he/she sees a right fit.

As they say "Pictures can speak thousand words without uttering one", therefore go ahead and let your creativity come out while creating your resume! Show off your skills to your potential employers in your first impression itself!


You can view my one here: Visual Resume - Srijata Bhatnagar