Thick paper and perfume on a resume simply won’t cut it these days. Fancy fonts and bullet points are ineffective as well. Mr. Bueno was sick of going through the motions of job search, only to get sucked into what many call the “black hole” when it comes to countless applications with virtually nothing to show for it. No calls. No emails. No job offers. Valentino Bueno had had enough. He added an oval at the top of his resume with his own smiling image inside. And he kept going. He designed his own watermark of his initials and stretched them diagonally across the page. He added large blue number to highlight points about his career.
“I wanted to do something that stood out,” says Mr. Bueno to the WSJ. “I feel like this is what the future of résumés is going to be.”
He’s not wrong. As GenZ starts working, employers are seeing more submissions with artistic submissions, including illustrations of their college mascot, logos of companies they have worked at, even icons and emojis. It starts with adding images and illustrations, and now we even see video resumes.
Job seekers simply want to get noticed. They know the stats… and they aren’t good. They know they have about a 2% chance of getting interviewed for many jobs. They know a human will spend about 8 seconds looking at their application… and that’s assuming an ATS doesn’t filter it out sooner! (read more about that here). So, the seeker is turning to more effective ways to not only stand out but to showcase their talents– video and imagery! Video resumes are surely part of the modern job search.
Several people have already been noticed for using TikTok to promote their personality and skills. Sneaking these links into a cover sheet or resume can be a powerful thing. Your life is your resume! Video and images let you tell your story efficiently, because no recruiter will ever read it since it doesn’t fit on a single sheet of paper. Don’t be shy, give it a shot. Be noticed for the person you are and NOT a piece of paper!