While perusing Facebook last week, a shared link caught my eye. I really had no idea what it was to, but it looked like a cool graphic and the guy sharing is a high-tech guru, so I clicked. If you like infographics (and really who doesn’t) vizualize.me will serve as a visual delight. Essentially it creates your resume in graphic form. You enter you stats, choose a style and out pops a pretty picture.

Not all employers are ready for such a dramatic shift in resumes, but there are definitely industries for which this may fit the bill. I would even consider it something worth sharing along with my traditional resume.

If your students already have a resume, between 30-45 minutes should be plenty of time to complete their visual resume. Once finished, have your students print their visual resumes. Allow them time to compare to each other as well as consider them from the viewpoint of a potential employer.

• What would the employer notice right away?
• What questions might the employer have after looking at your resume?
• What steps can you take during this school year to improve your resume?
• Sketch what you would like your resume to look like in ____ years.

More than anything, I think this exercise will illustrate the importance of growing their skills and gaining actual work experience.

Check out the video and logon for yourself.

Before turning students loose, please read the Terms of Service. If I were asking my students to complete the exercise, I would have them use a made-up name and not include any contact information. An alternative to having students create their own would be to print some of the publicly shared samples and compare and contrast them to each other.