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Next Gen Resumes for Next Gen Workers?

This week Suzanne Lucas posted on the seemingly inexhaustible topic of the death of the resume, adding a fresh twist by suggesting that biographical information delivered in a genuinely human voice in a cover letter is key in this relationship economy. Lucas is surely right that bone dry dates and facts won't help you stand out from the equally qualified competition, but are there ways to make your resume a vehicle for displaying your personality?

Writing on an Inc. blog Renee Oricchio recently suggested there is -- turn your resume into an infographic -- and shared a success story to illustrate her point:

For most of the thousands of college students getting their sheepskins this month and next, the months to come will likely be a sobering entrance into the job market. One graduate from the University of Missouri, however, is moving right into his dream job at The Huffington Post. Regardless of your age or experience you might want to pay attention to how he nailed it.
Chris Spurlock did it with his cleverly produced infographic resume and some aggressive social networking through Facebook, Twitter, and all the other usual suspects. For the right field, an infographic could be just the thing to make your resume stand out in the pile.
Oricchio goes on to offer several tips worth heeding, including "always offer a traditional text resume," as well as links to more examples. Of course, she isn't the first to suggest blending new media and the traditional paper CV -- we've covered video resumes before, as well as using YouTube to score a gig or SlideShare (and the internet went wild last year for this guy who got a job with a Google Maps resume). But this is the first I've heard of infographic resumes.

But you'd think with new ideas for innovative resumes washing through the media with great regularity, the idea would have caught on by now if it was useful for most job seekers. Sure, if you're in a cutting edge or creative industry (the kind where it might count against you if you wore a very serious suit to the interview) and you have the tech skills to show off, then maybe give it a go. But are all these innovative resume ideas really of much use to the majority of job seekers?

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(Image courtesy of Flickr user JenReeves, CC 2.0)
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