"With unemployment in the United States hovering around 10%, hunting for jobs can be a daunting endeavor.
Competition can be cutthroat, and job seekers have been using all kinds of unusual strategies to gain an edge in their searches, from donning sandwich boards advertising their skills to passing out resumes on street corners.
While some applicants have used these unorthodox strategies to secure a coveted position, others have used creative brute force, wielding new technology, unusual online outlets, and brand-new content creation tools to set themselves apart."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/09/creative-resumes-ideas-fo_n_530920.html
Please read through the article and enjoy the different portfolios and ask yourself:
Ask yourself for each of the portfolios: What is this person's contribution? How does this person want to be evaluated? How has this person gone about representing themselves?
Pick one of the portfolios you viewed and critique it in regards to the 3 questions above.
Let me know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
Portfolio chosen: Alexis Flash-Animated Online Resume, #1 Ranked
What is this person's contribution? He wants to make notice of his interactive creation artistry through his skills, experiences, and creativity. What better way to show one's contribution and overall strengths for being an interactive artist than by building a flash-animated online resume.
How does this person want to be evaluated? This person wants to be evaluated based upon his accomplishments which appear in a halo around him (throughout his interview), his creativity (which is evident based upon his creation of a flash-animated resume and the hair animation), and his individualism (his unique past experiences and examples of work which exemplify his personal quality).
How has this person gone about representing themselves?
This person has sent a message to future employers through his personal representation of himself in this online resume. He allows the employer to explore his resume based upon the employers interests concerning certain strengths and weaknesses they may or may not be looking for. He gives them this freedom by creating flash links that appear during his formal, yet informal "interview." This informal representation is obviously appealing to the average person (and arguably a future employer) as it is ranked number one among the various portfolios.
Overall, while his resume can be slightly more detailed, it's an attractive portfolio which allows a glimpse into the type of person this individual is. It's definitely an interesting idea or basis for an idea regarding different ways to market oneself or for our class, market one's overall class work.
Portfolio Chosen: David Bonggas - Graphic Designer Resume
What is this person's contribution?
He tries to use the artwork on his resume to convey his interest in digital art. He also contributes a picture of himself so that the employer will know what he looks like and that he his willing to include his photograph on important documents. Also, his resume documents his creativity and ingenuity.
How does this person want to be evaluated?
This person wants to be evaluated on his education, as well as his ability to use his computer knowledge to design a creative representation of himself. Also, he wants employers to know the specific software in which he is proficient and his design proficiencies. Finally, he wants to be evaluated based on his previous work experience and a portfolio that he has available.
How has this person gone about representing themselves?
This person represents himself through graphic and digital artwork. Also, he represents himself through lists of programs in which he is proficient and design projects that he has done. Also, he represents himself providing a picture of himself and stating that he has a portfolio available for review.
Overall, this resume seemed relatively straightforward and used graphic art as a backdrop for basic resume information. I was not sure how I felt about the person including a picture on his resume; I have never seen that done before and it seemed a bit unprofessional to me. I liked that he incorporated graphic design skill into his resume, so that future employers could see a representation of his design skills.
I decided to use the Tshirt idea (which is kind of funny in my opinion!)
What is this person's contribution? I feel that she uses the tshirt as a creative and humorous way to get the attention of the employer. The idea that it isn't on paper or computer is really unique.
How does this person want to be evaluated? I think that this person wants to be evaluated by her efforts of not having the typical paper/document resume, which would make her stand out of a crowd of applications and resumes (which I personally don't know if this would work if I was an employer).
How has this person gone about representing themselves? She's went about representing herself by wearing her resume in shirt form. I think that this is an interesting and fun idea, but I don't think I would be one of the first people to try it.. I think I'll wait until walking t-shirt resumes are a norm ;)
I also chose Alexis Trepanier's portfolio because it was so different from what I expected.
1) This person's contribution is a great proficiency at graphic and media design types of things. He contributes a lot of knowledge about media and how to best put it together. The portfolio in this format is fitting with the technological bent that most things seem to be taking on these days. This portfolio also shows how creative and ready to work in a creative field this man is.
2) This man wants to be evaluated based on his prior work experience mostly, and also on his proficiency in each of the things that he does. He not only wants the people looking at his portfolio to know that he has a wide variety of interests and accomplishments, but he also wants them to know the quality of each one of these. I can tell this because he does have many different fields that he is interested in, but within each one he gives examples of the work that he has done in that particular area. I would say that he wants to be seen and versatile, creative, and quality.
3) He has represented himself as a very creative guy. He included a video, which means that he wants people to remember his face and also to get a taste of his personality. He also wants people to see how versatile he is and give them a chance to look at his work in the particular field that they might be interested in, such as music or web games.
I chose Temitope Shoda's portfolio to critique because of the unique online structure and the artistry that was put into the portfolio.
1. This persons contribution has been that of graphic representations of their work as well as what has been accomplished in their career so far in a visual format so as people can view what has been done and accomplished by this person. Also through these contributions we can see that they’ve done a great deal in the area of architectural work as well as basic designing and layout.
2. This person wants to be evaluated on what has already been done and what they want to do with their career. In this portfolio we see many architectural designs as well as webpage designs. It seems that this person wants to be literally judge on the appearance of their work as well as how this work. He also states in his press section that he did this because he wanted it to be something that was easy to carry around but it also as he states because it shows the construction of the materials but the pages represent a certain level of art, all of which are very important in the design and architecture business.
3. This person has represented himself or herself as a very capable and creative person. One of which it seems is thinking outside the box in terms of creating a portfolio that is easily viewable my many and as something that is also easy and compact as to be carried around to many settings easily. Clearly he wants people to see the works that he has completed and ones in which he has worked on collaboratively with others. In this way upon viewing this persons portfolio I believe that they’ve done a very good job representing them in the way they wanted to be represented by their work.
I picked the headshot portfolio.
I believe this persons contributions are all of his achievements and awards. he obviously wanted the employer to know everything he has accomplished.
I believe this person wants to be evaluated and recognized for all of the hard work he has done.
He has gone about representing himself by showing his creativeness in the resume, as well as by ll the achievements he has accomplished. His resume is well organized and fun to look at. Keeps people interested.
I chose to write about Sam Garfield
1) Sam seems to stick to the realm of a paper resume, however it is creative and well designed. He brings to the table experience, creativity, service, and references
2) I think sam would like to be judged on his experience. Though, it is clear that he is creative, he still focuses heavily on the experience that he can bring to the table. He has many important details on the resume, however the largest categories belong to his related work experience and his other experience. Among his experience categories he also has his business cards photo copied into the resume.
3) He has definitely gone about representing himself in an artistic way, however it is clear that he still wants to be taken seriously. So an option like the t-shirt design would not be up his alley. But his design screams both creativity and class.
I thought the very first resume was very organized, clever, and with a little spin to it that catches an employer's eye.
What is this person's contribution? The write up says he is an artist. So maybe he is some sort of graphic designer for websites. I wasn’t able to view the resume that closely.
How does this person want to be evaluated?
I think his resume is showing his knowledge of technology, experience, and organizational formatting by creating this animated resume. By his narration and using the pop-ups do demonstrate his experiences, I think he wants to be evaluated on his uniqueness, professionalism, grand experience, and easy going personality.
How has this person gone about representing themselves?
He demonstrates his funny sense of humor and how he can look professional if asked to. He shows that he likes to be himself and the accomplishments show where they have gotten him by doing so. He is proud of what he has done but is not willing to work even harder if he was given a job.
Sam Garfield -digital collage of scanned objects
This resume is very creative. His experiences where shown in an art expressive view point. He was trying to represent himself in an artistic and original way. His resume had a lot of personality and life to it. The resume was eye catching
He would like to be evaluated as a person who is expressive and intelligent as well. He has experience in the job that he is seeking and in many other areas too. He has awards which demonstrate that he performed at the top of his class or in other areas that relate to the job description.
He has his picture on the resume which helps the employers put a face with the name for the interview. He wants to be represented in an imaginative and inventive way. Different ideas in different section of his resume represented his character .
First of all I want to say that a lot of these portfolios were extremely creative but a few definitely stood out from the rest. The one I chose to critique was "The Pocket CV" by Temitope Shoda.
His contribution is showing his talents and past works, by creating a small, easy to use portfolio that can fit in anyones pocket. This definitely sets him apart from other design students in regards to the portfolio.
It appears to me that Shoda wants to be evaluated by his "pocket portfolio". Since I am a designer, I find this method very fascinating because in an age of technological advances, he chooses to use a print method in which sets him apart from designers using web sites and animations as their primary means of "being seen".
Representing himself - Shoda's web site lists several competitions and various civic duties (helping out by teaching young students) which shows his character and how he wants his potential employers to view him.