Resumes and Presentation of Data

Dr. Tufte,

I just completed your seminar in Denver this week. Thank you.

I am a consultant and have been recently enhancing my resume. I wanted to know your thoughts on how to use some of your suggestions in putting together a resume. My resume is a technical one, but I wanted to get your thoughts on maybe how to get more information on one page.

As I was looking at the cover of Visual Explanations (and recently reading about the Project Mgmt thread), I had an idea that was similar for resumes and wanted to get your input.

I have two ideas:

1) Horizontal format:

Originally my thought was to have a horizontal format rather than vertical. Here’s my thought along the bottom (similar to visual explanations cover) you list your major talents (as a legend). The rest of the paper would be filled with your experience broken into categories (e.g. Software Engineering, Web services, …).

2) Vertical format:

Have this legend be between your “biography” and “experience” using a similar concept as above.

I was speaking to an HR person and he was very intrigued by the idea. I showed him your web site.

A picture would clearly explain this a little more. How would I post a graphic, or should I just include a link?

So what is your thought?

Thanks

Jerry Howard