I recently wrote about visual resumes, and asked recruiters on Linked In if they felt they would be more effective than a traditional resume or not, with mixed comments. After that big post, I discovered Visual CV, a free (as of right now at least) hosted web application that makes putting together a visual resume EASY. I spent some time this morning putting mine together, and I am hooked. Here’s why: 1 | The interface is intuitive enough to use without help – always a plus for never-before-seen-or-used software. 2 | The CV sections are completely customizable, draggable, and easy to add or delete. 3 | The presentation is nice and clean. Though I wish I could insert my own brand elements, the three options for the resume design are pleasant enough to look at. 4 | You can pack all the information a company or recruiter might ever need, into one nice page. 5 | Your resume can be shared, forwarded, printed or saved as a PDF. 6 | You can quickly insert photos, video, diagrams, documents, links and anything else you can think of to help create a great impression. (Check out Guy Kawasaki’s resume!) 7 | The nature of it being hosted for you online, plus the ease of editing, makes it a living document… change it any time you think of something that would make it better! 8 | Sending a link takes much less bandwidth in a talent manager’s inbox than a resume attachment. They can check it out, easily forward it, and let you know if they’d like more information or an electronic document. Being a user experience designer, I do have a few, teeny requests of things I wish they’d add or fix: • The executive resume design bothers me. It doesn’t feel quite as “smooth” as the other two. • I didn’t see an option for recruiters to access a Word doc or plain text option, though you could add one to your portfolio and create a section for it or link to it. • I cannot help but want more advanced options for branding the design of the resume to make it my own. • I long for web stats so I can see who has been checking out my resume. (UPDATE: stats are there – I just missed them before!) • There is either a bug, or a hiccup in Safari on the Mac, with the text being copied/pasted. It didn’t always come in at the same size, and I had to hit return and back up several times, to make it all the same size. A size option for the text would be a nice addition to the Bold, Italic, etc. options. My resume is a work in progress, but feel free to check it out, and while you’re there, create one of your own! http://www.visualcv.com/kristicolvin/ And if you are a hiring manager or recruiter and would like to fill out my brief survey on whether or not a visual resume can be effective for applicants, please do!