{"id":686,"date":"2009-10-27T02:58:46","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T07:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/BrandTwist.com\/?p=686"},"modified":"2018-10-18T20:14:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T20:14:41","slug":"5-tips-for-building-a-better-visual-resume","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/career-in-branding\/5-tips-for-building-a-better-visual-resume\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Tips for Building a Better (Visual) Resume"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post, 5 Tips for Building a Better (Visual) Resume, is another in our series providing insight and action steps for those who are job seeking. Julie Cottineau\u00a0gives her top tips and shares insights from her 25+ years at great companies such as Grey, Interbrand and Virgin.\u00a0You can read more entries in this Career series\u00a0HERE<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Portfolios have long been a critical job search component of people in Creative positions.<\/p>\n

But I think they are an effective tool for anyone looking to sell themselves.<\/p>\n

Pictures do paint a thousand words.<\/p>\n

And many people in today\u2019s visually oriented society simply respond better to images.<\/p>\n

My advice is to create a visual resume.<\/p>\n

There are two ways to do this.<\/p>\n

One is an online service<\/a>. I haven\u2019t actually used this but it looks interesting.<\/p>\n

The other, which I use, is to create a portfolio that acts as an accompanying piece to your traditional resume.<\/p>\n

It simply brings your traditional resume to life in images.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s 5 Tips on how to create this kind of impactful visual resume:<\/p>\n

#1 Start by bringing your personal brand to life<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

The first page of my visual resume talks about my background. So it\u2019s a montage of images of people, places, and events that are important to me and help define who I am as a brand.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s got pictures of the town I grew up in, an emblem from my University, logos of a few of the brands that I am passionate about, and even a snap shot of my family.<\/p>\n

It even has a picture of a pet rock.<\/p>\n

This last image is a great conversation starter and allows me to tell a story about how I first got inspired to go into marketing at a very young age (more on that in another post).<\/p>\n

The montage is colorful, upbeat, fun- all personality traits I want to make sure come through.<\/p>\n

#2 Put your work experience into pictures as well as words:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The next section of my visual resume brings to life my work experience.<\/p>\n

For example, when I talk about the accounts I worked on in advertising, I show the logos and even some of the ads.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While I worked on these as an account person (not a copywriter or art director) the images still help to ground the conversation.<\/p>\n

I think they make it more interesting when I talk about the positioning and strategy work on these products.<\/p>\n

This work was critical in driving the end result (the ads) and showing the images helps make the experience real.<\/p>\n

The same goes for my work in brand consulting and now on the Client side at Virgin.<\/p>\n

#3 Don\u2019t assume people are familiar with the brands you\u2019ve worked on:<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are a lot of great brands out there, but not everyone you meet will be familiar with them.<\/p>\n

Even now when I talk about my experience at Virgin in presentations and key note speeches, I always start with some images of the Virgin portfolio brands or a reel of our history.<\/p>\n

These images help put everyone on the same page.<\/p>\n

They help ground my audience in the specific categories (media, aviation, financial services etc) so that I know we are starting from a common place as I move on to make my points I don\u2019t have anyone stuck in the audience thinking \u201cwait, Virgin, I\u2019ve heard of them but I can\u2019t remember what they do exactly?\u201d<\/p>\n

Also they start the presentation on an interesting, visually impactful note.<\/p>\n

A job interview is a lot like a presentation, except the audience is usually one or two people. You need to make sure your audience is following what you say and is engaged.<\/p>\n

# 4 Visualize results and outcomes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

When talking about past client experience it\u2019s also great to include not just logos, but snapshots of the work (E.g. a screen grab of a web page, even a jpeg of the front cover of a research report you\u2019ve written).<\/p>\n

Make sure to include brief bullet points of key challenges or objectives of the project.<\/p>\n

And then it\u2019s very important to include any results (e.g. grew web traffic by 11%, reduced costs by 10%, research well received by client\/senior management and drove changes in strategic direction etc.).<\/p>\n

If you are talking about articles you\u2019ve written or press interviews put logos of the media brands and if possible excerpts from the articles.<\/p>\n

If you are speaking about awards or honors you\u2019ve received, include snapshots from the events. Or a logo of the award (e.g. Effie).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s never too late to start on this, make sure you have a digital camera with you at all times and ask people to take snapshots of you at conferences, key notes, outside of HQ\u2019s of clients.<\/p>\n

Think of your day to day work life as a journey that should be documented and shared at the right moment.<\/p>\n

If you are working on a package redesign project or a brand identity refresh, make sure you are documenting some \u201cbefore\u201d images and make sure to include the before and after shots in your visual resume.<\/p>\n

#5 Pay attention to form and formatting:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can do this presentation in PowerPoint.<\/p>\n

But pay attention to layout and design.<\/p>\n

Keep it clean and simple. With phrases that are short and punchy.<\/p>\n

Think of the text as headlines which you will be further explaining in your voice over.<\/p>\n

If design is not your forte, create a draft and then ask a creative friend to finesse the layout.<\/p>\n

You can show this presentation on a laptop. But I always think this is slightly too salesy and a bit awkward to know when to fire it up.<\/p>\n

I advise people to print out the visual resume, and include it in a nice, high quality portfolio binder\u00a0.<\/p>\n

I \u00a0have had people show me their work in drugstore photo albums.<\/p>\n

If you are going for a marketing job (in any department) this doesn\u2019t send the right message.<\/p>\n

If you have a nice book, you can simply place it on the table at the beginning of your interview and when someone says tell me about yourself, it\u2019s more natural to say \u201cif you\u2019d like I can walk you through some examples of my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

A book (vs. computer presentation) also provides a greater sense of human contact. You can sit next to your interviewer and flip through.<\/p>\n

I interview a lot of people and I always welcome the opportunity for a little show and tell. It breaks up the monotony of all the chit chat.<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re interviewing for a position as a CPA or a brand planner…<\/p>\n

I think that painting a picture with images, not just words, will help bring your experience to life and set you apart from the crowd.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my point of view. What\u2019s your twist?<\/p>\n

Have you had good results with a visual resume?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post, 5 Tips for Building a Better (Visual) Resume, is another in our series providing insight and action steps for those who are job seeking. Julie Cottineau\u00a0gives her top tips and shares insights from her 25+ years at great companies such as Grey, Interbrand and Virgin.\u00a0You can read more entries in this Career series\u00a0HERE.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,49,50,110,103],"tags":[60,45,46,118,119,52,66,120,121,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-career-in-branding","7":"category-careers","8":"category-entrepreneurs","9":"category-personal-branding","10":"category-quicktips","11":"tag-brand-school","12":"tag-brandtwist","13":"tag-career","14":"tag-career-building","15":"tag-job-seeking","16":"tag-julie-cottineau","17":"tag-personal-branding-2","18":"tag-portfolio","19":"tag-resume","20":"tag-visual-resume"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16619,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions\/16619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandtwist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}