As part of COETAIL Course 3, which focuses on Visual Literacy, we talk a lot about design and often end up discussing (and comparing) résumés. I love seeing how different teachers represent their personality and philosophy through the way they share their experiences!

TiddlyRésuméAt our last COETAIL meeting for this school year, we happened to look at a few really unique examples: Sonya, Tasha and Jamie. In each résumé, you can really get a feel for each individual’s perspective and approach, simply based on the design and format. Looking at these examples made me realize that my résumé needed a lot of work. Even thought it’s served me well so far, it had just become an endless list of bullet points. As Jamie said when he looked at “you can tell you have a lot of good stuff here, but you don’t know what to do with it.”

So, inspired by Tasha’s look and feel (and Jamie and Sonya’s beautiful and unique designs), I decide to rework my résumé (and the rest of my professional portfolio). It’s not an infographic, or a visual résumé – not yet – but I am considering adding that option eventually. I also looked at Jeff’s, Scott’s and Angela’s for inspiration – I’m sure there are tons of other great examples out there, I just happened to remember liking something about each one of those at some point.

For now, I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve got, but I would really like some feedback!

I wanted to make sure that:

  • the printed version was only 2-pages (down from a 4-page epic saga)
  • the web version was streamlined and easy on the eyes (with plenty of white space)
  • I highlighted the consistent themes from all of my work experience, rather than each job on its own
  • my personality and approach was more prominent than just a list of tasks completed
  • everything included in the two pages was worth reading

For the rest of my professional portfolio, I was really focusing on:

  • showing a more personal side (rather than just the professional)
  • highlighting the different types of consulting work I can offer (thanks to Angela for this idea)
  • re-organizing my presentations page (which used to be a long list of slideshare and youtube embeds that took forever to load)
  • featuring the workshops I can offer, separate from presentations, so that it’s easier for schools to see examples of my previous experience
  • making it easy to keep my experience up-to-date more regularly (since I normally only update when I’m recruiting)

I’m not planning on going recruiting anytime soon, but I do want to apply for the MYP Workshop Leader training (which will have to be for next year since I clearly missed the deadline for this year), and I do want to make sure that it’s easy to find out more about me and what I can offer a school as a consultant.

Portfolio MailerI also really wanted to make my whole website look more like a portfolio than a modified blog. Thanks to Jeff, I discovered WPExplorer, who has tons of beautiful (free and premium) WordPress designs to choose from. This particular theme was so easy to customize, and ironically looks a lot more like my old portfolio from about 10 years ago that I designed with Dreamweaver (but this one was about a million times easier to create and modify!).

Although it may be a while before my portfolio is used for full-time recruiting, I think (hope) this design will still look good – simple, clean and easy to navigate, while highlighting my skills, experience and personality.

What do you think? What am I missing? Can you find out everything you would want to know without being overwhelmed with information? What should I change? Have you seen other great examples of educators’ professional portfolios that you can share? 

Image Credits:

5 thoughts on “Résumé Redesign

  1. What a unique idea to use with students! I could see using in many ways with my first graders, such as, to “apply” to second grade, apply to be a classroom helper, show what they have learned throughout the school year. Very cool and a way to connect them to the real world.

  2. This is a place that reinforces hyperlinks. In the day, we were told that resumes shouldn’t be more than one or two pages. That seems extremely limiting. Your resume is concise, yet provides opportunity for more information.

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