Visual CVs - a comparison and a poll

A new toy has appeared since some time in the Recruitment world - tailing the end tail of the infographics' visual appeal: the Visual CV - or in other words, your resume reduced (or improved) in its infographic format.

Multiple options have appeared, with different level of visual complexity, options and ease of use. I want to compare 4 options, rating 1(low) to 3 (high) each of these elements:

• is it Representative of the data that we want to see portrayed?
• is it Useable? (is it possible to import data, from LinkedIn or a CV? how easy it is to customize?)
• Is it Relevant - does it bring new information, or a new light?
• and is it Aesthetic? (of course this is a lot more subjective, so I will stick to a gut feel of the choices and options available) 

1. Visual CV is the easier to find - and in fact, it functions like a traditional job board, and collect your CV to make it searcheable for potential employers on their site. Not exactly what I was researching. It is painful to use - even when "importing from LinkedIn", data has to be manually added; in addition, the formatting provides little additional visual tools than a normal CV...

Nothing particularly exciting. 

Representative: 2

Useable: 1

Relevant: 1

Aesthetic: 1            

2. Re.Vu - I like this one. It has a great visualization, and good customization options; you can import your own background, and select different color schemes, including creating your own. It is possible to import data from LinkedIn, but you will still need to manually enter career milestones and history (and the history has only a short visibility due to the format), as well as select all other type of information you wish to display in infographic format. 

The main drag I see is that the more infographics get added, the longer the format - and in our world of horizontal screens, it is difficult to visualize. 

Representative: 3

Useable: 2 (lots of manual re-entry)

Relevant: 3

Aesthetic: 3

3. Visualize.me

Less infographics, but the option to import the recommendations from your LinkedIn profile - sadly, you cannot just select one or two, but only prioritize the first ten. I found that some of the graphics required too much space for the value added. Colors and styles are fully customizeable. 

Representative: 3

Useable: 3 - WOW, nothing to re-enter, but some re-formatting/consolidation required.

Relevant: 2

Aesthetic: 3

4. ResumUP can be as touchy-feely as you want. It offers a lot of options to fill your profile; many however are available only for premium profiles - an expense of 7.5 to 10$/monthly. 

Representative: 2 - the options are great, but even some critical ones such as mobility or salary can only be added by premium customers. 

Useable: 3 

Relevant: 2 - not sure all the options are actually useful, it requires a lot of decisions

Aesthetic: 3 - the skills imported (from LinkedIn) have a nice graphic. 

Conclusion.

Having options is always great, and each vendor provides some plus and some cons. Finding, filling and writing all these four templates have taken a half day (including some annoying manual entry, yes, I am complaining), so it is an acceptable effort. 

Now, what I am truly wondering is how useful this can be. By making the CV more digestible at a glance, are we making it easier for the HUMANS in recruitment to evaluate our application? I would hope so; but I also believe that the edge gained is very little, and it will be counter-productive when facing an ATS (Applicant Tracking), not be able to read such a CV. 

I see it more useful for business service providers, to allow a prospective customers to review and compare at a glance multiple profiles. 

As an end... I would love to have your opinion - which of the visuals is in your opinion the most relevant? are there any elements that should be better showcased? is there anything forgotten?

THANK YOU for any and all inputs. 

A rose by any other name - or, is it HR or IT?

While reading the news of the day yesterday morning, I happened by this post by my trusted friend Prashanth Padmanabhan. 

The debate started well before we started speaking about "CLOUD" or SaaS, discussed many times, at meetings, global user groups and conventions, in private offices and conference halls.

Credit: http://incandescentcloud.com/cloud-credits/ - isn't it a magnificent art installation?

Indeed, should HR or IT take the lead when it come to HRIS projects? 
When the Cloud started being commercialized, the common understanding was that FINALLY the function could be solely in charge, with very limited or no input required by the IT/IS group - so there would be no need for expensive long term consultants, nor specialized IT headcount. Is that true? More specifically, can we hold it true when we are talking about critical systems as HR Core?

Confluence 2014 in Santa Clara

On March 5th, I attended Confluence 2014  in Santa Clara. 
First thing first: I must give thanks to the organization of the event, who contacted me and was kind enough to invite me to attend. It was a day very well spent. 

The title of the event could appear pretentious anywhere else than in Silicon Valley: "The Future of Engineering: Better, Faster, Smaller". Here, it felt just right. While I feared to be blown off by topics way out of my comfort (i.e. expertise) zone, the agenda's keynotes and panels hit right home, and I learnt a lot from a roaster of exceptional speakers. 

Just a quick update - with a recently interview on Ciao Pittsburgh

Have you ever regretted not doing an MBA?

HA.

Well, no, I never wanted to go for an MBA (even if occasionally I considered the idea, in particular when my alma mater EPFL started sending me the pamphlets detailing the executive MBA in Management of Technology); I remember too well the sense of relief I had upon finishing my degree, and how much more at ease I felt in the real world rather than in pure academia.

Am I ready to change my mind, just when a few recent articles evaluate the actual value of an MBA sizeable investment (examples of such articles can be found on Forbes, or on Business Insider)? No, I don't think so, but I have become more curious of the different opportunities out there.

My life still doesn't afford me the extra time to go back to school; and programs that I have evaluated tend to be exemplary for how they address other people need for development, but never seem to truly apply to me. My niche is HRIS - it branches out in many different disciplines, but I have never had the ambition to become CIO; even less now that HRIS systems (on premise, in the Cloud, for large corporations, for small 1 to 200 employees ventures, as well as everything in between) are in such a frenzy of novelty.

Credit: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/mooc-makes-oxford-online-dictionary/2006838.article

Enter here the MOOC approach (my last blog in December was about my recent discovery). Quickly, I found myself using many waking moments (I will not say all, because I have an employer and a family, each having every right to expect my full attention during large parts of my days) evaluating which courses I would prefer to pick and how many I can manage to learn well from simultaneously.