Infographics have been popping in up in online articles and in business proposals and projects for years as a way to show data or information in a concise and eye-appealing manner. Recently, people have been taking this notion and implementing them in their CVs.
While the normal paper CV might have gotten the job done in the past it might be time to switch to an electronic CV with interactive infographics to keep up with the competition.
Get noticed by potential employers
Potential employers and human resource representatives sift through endless CVs when they’re looking to fill an open position. This can be tedious and your paper CV may get lost in that pile without anything more than a second glance. By creating an electronic CV with interactive infographics you can stand out from the pack and make the hiring agent take notice. Instead of blocks of text outlining your experience and education they’ll see colourful graphs and charts that outline your professional life in a way that grabs and holds their attention.
What’s going to stand out more in a competitive race for a job? One of these, or your paper CV? I know which one would get my vote.
Highlight important information
You can use infographics to highlight certain facts that you want your potential employer to pay special attention to. A CV is basically just a timeline of events and a list of skills. This is data that can be made into a chart or graph quite easily.
If you have a wide range of skills you can use an infographic to outline these skills in a way that makes them stand out from the other parts of your CV. If you’re proud of your volunteer work or management experience you can highlight those facts with an infographic.
The creation of the infographic in general can show off your skills if you’re looking for a position in a technical or creative field as it will show off those talents right away. Since these graphs and charts are concise you can easily summarise everything you want to say without a three-page CV.
Personalise your CV
Infographics allow you to show off a little of your personality while you convey your past achievements and experiences. Your gap year travels may get a single line in a paper CV, but in an infographic, this can be explained and even pointed out as a marketable asset (more on that here on Randstad’s website).
It’s critical to realise that recruiters want to know a candidate better before the interview process, which is why so many of them use social media to get a better sense of a potential new hire. Paper CVs don’t tend to be very personal at all as most are based on a template that the majority of applicants use. With infographics you can guide the recruiter and showing them where they can get to know you instead of them doing a blind search on the internet.
But I don’t know Photoshop…
If you’re worried that your lack of design skills will hold you back, don’t. There are a range of online tools you can use to create your own infographic without being a design guru. If you can drag-and-drop, then you should be fine.
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