21. Sign up Steps Navigate to www.visualcv.com Click the “Get Yours Now – It’s Free!” button. Fill in the requested information and click “Create My Account Now.”
Today we are going to take a quick look at an exciting new way to create your resume: Visual CV. Visual CV is a free, online portfolio with a great deal of flexibility. Don’t think of a Visual CV as only a paper resume online. It is a lot more than that! It is the opportunity for you to show a potential employer what you can do by actually doing it. It also gives you the opportunity to go much more depth than you normally would in a paper resume. It also signals to your potential employers that you are technically savy, and able to “think outside the box.” Creating your Visual CV has has two parts: Gathering the materials you want to use, and actually creating the portfolio. Creating the Visual CV is not hard. I think you will use 80% of your time gathering materials and 20% actually building the portfolio.
When most people think of developing a resume, they start by thinking of their education, skills, and experiences. But they start by thinking of themselves. I want you to not do that. Instead, you need to start by thinking about your audience: potential employers. If you start there, you will naturally include information that is of interest to your viewers, and – even more important – you will naturally NOT include information that is NOT important to them. But to do that you must have some information about your potential employers. You need to know what they are looking for in an employee, what they value, and something about people that they serve. Try to boil this information into about 5 bullet points and refer to them as you are developing your Visual CV. Next think about what sets you apart from all the other people that are applying for that job. I should revise that to say: What sets you apart THAT IS OF VALUE TO YOUR POTENTIAL EMPLOYER. So if you can play the zither, that’s unique. But when looking for an interpreter job, zither playing is not very valuable! So don’t include it on your Visual CV!The intersection of your skills/education/experience and your audience’s needs/values = your resume
We will brainstorm a list of attributes and then talk about how the students can “prove” that they possess those attributes.
Be sure you are keeping your audience in mind the entire time you are gathering. You may need to create some of these materials. For example, you might want to have some/one/all of your reference be in the form of video. You will have to make those videos then, as it is unlikely you have them now. Or if you have a particular professional interest – maybe you would like to interpret in a niche area, but you haven’t had any jobs in that area yet. Then you might want to either stage something and video tape it. We will talk about where the students can find these materials. The more “lively” your Visual CV is, the better.If you have a LinkedIn resume already, then VisualCV can pull that into your page.
The layouts available are pretty simple. The name of your Visual CV and the sections can be changed in the future, if you wish.
I will also show my VisualCV and talk about each section. FYI, Mark Benjamin could take pictures of the class members, if that was desired.
Once you have your site put together, look for gaps. Gaps are things your audience will think very important, but you haven’t addressed on your resume.
You need to be sure that your resume is perfect when it comes to grammar, punctuation, and writing. You also want to make sure that your VisualCV is clear and easy to understand. It also needs to be technically correct. We will talk about where the students will find that feedback.
You need to be sure that your resume is perfect when it comes to grammar, punctuation, and writing. You also want to make sure that your VisualCV is clear and easy to understand. It also needs to be technically correct. We will talk about where the students will find that feedback