Tell HN: My experience with a "Resume 2.0" site.

http://ilovecolourlovers.com

There's seems to be some interest around here in these “resume 2.0” sites lately, so I thought I'd throw my experience out there for the benefit of my fellow HN'ers (also some critique will be coming my way, I'm sure.).

I was contacted by their CEO who said he was impressed with the site and my passion. After some back and forth questions he said they'd already filled the two positions for which I may be a good fit. He wished me the best of luck and said he'd pass on my info to any interested parties he came across. (This was last week.) It was a positive experience overall, but no offer.

Since I didn't get the job, I re-purposed it for 37signals and sent it to them as an application piece for their current UI opening. (http://ilove37signals.com) I haven't heard from them either. (Probably some really stiff competition there, considering their level of pop-dev media exposure.) I'd like to get some feedback on this. It's my code and the enthusiasm is sincere, but I felt weird re-purposing it after building it for a specific company...

Maybe my interface design/dev and copy writing chops aren't what I thought they were, or maybe I just had bad timing. I’m also aiming high, because I actually like my current job, but it looks like pay has leveled out and I basically have no benefits (I pay almost $1,000/month for health coverage for myself and my family.)

As for the code, it was meant to be a resume/portfolio in and of itself as evidenced by the content, but also the back end of it utilizes everything I currently know about CSS3 and responsive web design with lots of nice (IMHO) touches like embedded web fonts, shadows, text shadows gradients, media queries, transforms etc... I think it's a pretty slick piece.

I'm probably going to re-skin my personal site at http://wademeredith.com with some iteration of this design and keep looking for a telecommuting/Kansas City job as a UI designer/developer that actually has benefits.

FWIW, As long as it's an employer's market, I think this "resume 2.0" trend will grow. A competent design/dev can knock out a completely custom one of these out in a weekend. (I did this over the course of about 7 days in my spare time. I work 60 hours a week and have an 11-month old daughter.) When the cost of really standing out from the stack of resumes is a weekend project's worth of work, why wouldn't you do it? Especially if it can land you a job you'll have for years.

TL;DR Didn't get the job, got a nice note from the CEO, will be re-purposing the code for something else since a lot went into it.

Hi, I'm not a designer, but here it goes.

1/ The vertical coloured stripes look good on the "content" part, but not on the top, as a background to the "I love ..." text.

2/ You "cut" the page horizontally below the "I love ..." text, but this seems to be dissonant with the vertical stripes. Maybe the top part should have a different background color?

3/ The vertical stripes don't go all the way down, it doesn't look right to me.

4/ The screenshots move up on mouseover, but it doesn't feel right.

5/ The actual content of your "Resume 2.0" is still too resumey. "ColourLovers.com has been a part of my creative process blah blah... I've been designing, building and writing blah blah". I'm not saying it's bad, in fact it's probably very good, it's just not that different from a regular old resume.

6/ I think that a website-as-a-resume is an all or nothing deal. I mean, the person either sees it and says "yeah I want this guy", but if not, I don't think they'll go to the trouble of actually finding your resume PDF link on the site, printing it and adding it to their stack of regular submissions in whatever system they're using.

7/ Shouldn't the "one-page resume" link to a PDF? I think it's broken, I can't get to your actual PDF resume to print it!

8/ As another commenter mentioned, you're using Wordpress to generate one page? It's even got an empty RSS feed =)

Hope it helps, good luck with your job hunting!

I don't think repurposing your design is a good way to get ux/design job. You'll need a custom design to fit like a glove, see loren's " I want to work for Airbnb ". The template monster thing is a problem. Second your site feels too much like a resume. I think writing and content should have more of a cover letter + resume feel to it. Highlight all the benefits you'll bring to the company.

your colors (grays and reds) don't work for me and they are distracting. lighten up!

I have a gripe with this whole "resume 2.0" thing.

It's not about a flashy design. It's not about specifically targeting the company you want to work for.

It's about standing out from the crowd. Being special. Once everyone and their mother start creating a "resume 2.0", it will become a commodity, and designers and developers will need to devise new ways of attracting employer attention.