Do you wish to stand out from the rest of the other candidates applying for the same role? Do you want recruiters to know your creative side as you pump up your resume with your skills and qualifications?
Well, you can do that from the onset by crafting an infographic resume.
Infographic resumes are colourful, high-res document that visually presents your work experience and skills with bar graphs, pie charts, timelines and other graphics in a creative way. It is effective in showcasing significant career achievements, recommendations and patterns of professional success.
Advantages of Infographic Resume
With infographic resumes becoming more popular, there are plenty of advantages of creating one to complement your traditional resume:
- A well-prepared and well-presented infographic resume can help you differentiate yourself from in a pile of black and white, boring resume pile
- Show your personality by making your resume memorable and uniquely yours by using various combination of font styles, colours, graphs and charts
- Tell a story with appropriately-images which sends a positive message to the interviewer
- Can be a powerful networking tool. Share your infographic resume during networking events. Hand them out like a business card.
Design Guidelines
Crisp lines combined with contrasting fonts and colours are key to creating a compelling infographic resume.
For first-timers, keep in the mind the following guidelines when creating your infographic resume:
1. Central Elements – important items in your resume:
- Your name
- Headline announcing who you are – your job target
- Subheading that introduces to bullet points to highlight your primary keywords and giving recruiter ideas on what’s in the bullet points
- Chart, graphs and image that quickly narrates your experience and skills
- Accomplishments
2. Balance – your resume should look well-balanced on the page and on the mobile or desktop. Set equal margins all around. Adjust spacing in between lines, making them consistent in between sections, job titles, job descriptions bullet points.
3. White Space – observe white space in your resume to improve readability and promote balance. Give recruiters a visual breather by breaking up large clumps of text.
4. Graphics, Tables, Charts, Image and Visuals – images draw many more viewers. They keep them on the page longer than text. Choose images that support the content of your resume. However, be careful that they don’t overpower all-important content.
5. Colour – the general rule of thumb is using white, black and a third colour (like blue or green) is a safe resume colour scheme. Choose one dominant colour, one secondary and the third one to place emphasis. Avoid bright colours. The colours should complement each other, not to undermine the content.
6. Placement –- the top third of your resume is the prime real estate so place essential texts and elements in that area. Position graphic and charts in a section where they support the appropriate texts but doesn’t interfere with readability.
7. Consistency – help your interview by giving them clues about the kind of information they are processing. Being consistent throughout your resume gives it a polished and professional look.
Top 3 Free Infographic Resume Maker
Here comes the easy part. In the past, you need to hire a graphic designer to build a stylish infographic resume.
Nowadays, there are plenty of online tools available to help you craft elegant and modern resumes.
Rounding out the top three free online resume makers:
1.Canva
Canva is one of the most popular and easiest to use infographic maker. The free account allows you 1 GB of storage for images and other assets as well as access to thousands of templates.
For non-graphic designers, you can use the pre-defined template and replace the dummy details with your own. You can use all the graphic design tools to make your resume: add shapes, elements, custom images, font styles, background and videos. One cool feature is a free video which you can embed on your document to make it more animated. Professional designers are not totally left out as they can also design their own resume from scratch.
In Canva, you can design beautiful classic text-based resumes. By using blocks of bold colour, patterns or incorporating modern font styles, you can surely create a winning resume.
2. Piktochart
Piktochart is another great infographic resume maker. It offers a full suite of content format: social media graphics, poster, presentations, reports and flyers. It has plenty of templates to choose from, with the option to create a custom design. You can also upload your own images, icons or logos to personalize your resume.
The drag and drop feature allows you to customize shapes, elements, images, font styles and sizes, background. The resume builder function creates infographics in blocks, which is helpful if you wish to reorganize whole sections. Or, you can opt to show your resume as a Powerpoint, in a slick format, block by block.
The free version allows downloading of your resume. For a high-res image version, you need to upgrade to the premium account.
3. Venngage
Venngage is the most editable among the resume infographic tool. You can begin with the choice of a blank template and add your own font and color. And to make your resume extra special, add a background picture for that personal touch.
One unique feature is making your resume shareable online: you can upload it on Slideshare and Pinterest. And there are nice SEO element by listing important keywords and skills that recruiters use to search for your specific role. With SEO comes the analytics section where you can monitor your resume views, views in the past week, etc.
And if you’re pressed for time, you can source your LinkedIn information. And export and print your resume as needed.
Conclusion
Creating an infographic resume can be fun job-hunting activity. You get to display your personality and promote your skills.
Just follow the guidelines above to create a resume that is professional and visually appealing.
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