We've talked about infographics before on Land Surveyors United. The infographic résumé is one of the latest and hottest new CV formats around. Not for the faint hearted, or those of a less creative persuasion, the infographic is a pictorial representation of facts; in this case, facts about your work history. For the creative industries, this can be a really cool way of showing off your design skills and interpretation of data. It is also a great way to send unsolicited employment requests, i.e. contacting companies who you’d like to work for that aren’t currently advertising for specific positions.

Recipe for a Successful Infographic CV

To make an infographic CV that is useful and will be well received by the reader, follow the ‘recipe’ below.

Ingredients (content):

• Your work experience
• Timeline of your relevant work and education history
• Personal achievements and relevant awards or honours
• Basic personal information

Method:

1. Graphs are only relevant when they represent interesting information. Depending on your usual creative process you may wish to sketch out the best way of representing your information using a notepad or design package on your computer.
2. Use the design packages that you are familiar with in order to create the infographic. Alternatively, if you’re relatively new to the game, you can use online free tools to do this such as Wordle, which creates interesting text graphics, and infogr.am, which allows you to put together the full infographic.
3. You’ll need to strike the right balance between text and graphics – you need to get as much CV information as possible without large blocks of text. Make the really important and pertinent stuff stand out.
4. Remember less is more and it’s actually your experience and strong points you are trying to get across (unless you’re a designer) rather than the visuals. Print it out and take a look at it from an outsider’s point of view. Be really critical and rework until you have something that will impress even your biggest critic.
5. Get the infographic seen. Send to companies you want to work for, post it on your website/blog/Facebook pages. Create a Behance portfolio and utilise other online sharing websites such as Pinterest. It’s amazing how quickly these things can be shared and spread.
6. To properly monitor the reach of your infographic, use a service such as bitly to find out which employers have gone to view the infographic or the links you might’ve included. This way, when you make that vital follow up phone call (don’t wait for them to call you) you will know what’s caught their interest and you can expand on that in the conversation

Read More about how to create an Infographic Resume here.