The long awaited and way overdue private beta of Vizualize.me is out and I was able to take it for a spin. This nifty start-up helps take an ordinarily dull, black and white, text-heavy resume and converts it to be an attractive and interactive infographic.
Fast and Easy Infographics
Within just seconds, I had a full infographic resume designed for me. I simply logged in, clicked the “Connect with LinkedIn” button and almost immediately I had an infographic custom tailored with my personal information from work history to education. It took me no longer than 60 seconds tops.
From there, I was able to click through and choose different infographic templates to give my resume a custom look. From colors to fonts to uploading custom backgrounds, I had full control over making my infographic look simply spectacular. I must admit, I didn’t work very hard on this one because I was so excited to write the review.
Improving the Interactive Infographic
Like I said, this was merely a beta test, so by no means was Vizualize.me perfect, nor did I expect it to be. For its initial beta release, it was pretty impressive.
It seems that most issues occurred with the “Recommendations” section. The tool tip (the box with text when you hover over an item), was extremely distorted. There were no paragraph breaks and you could only see a fraction of the recommendation. That is a major UI fail. There were also several infographic templates in which text overlapped in titles and tool tips were distorted and not pleasing to the eye.
Another issue with the recommendation feature is that it cuts the recommendation in an awkward location. If you were able to select and highlight one or two sentences that were most appropriate, I think that would be far more effective. Additionally, if you were able to pick and choose which recommendations to display, I think that would be helpful in trying to market yourself. Some recommendations are simply more flattering than others. Yet another issue I found with the recommendations is that it only shows the recommenders’ first name. I understand this for security and privacy reasons, however, it should at least include a company if not a title as well.
All that to say, for a beta, this is pretty good. I know that those two things (poor tool tip formatting and improving functionality of recommendations feature) will be worked out quickly and make Vizualize.me great!
Thoughts on the Resume Infographic
Overall, I think the idea of an infographic resume is phenomenal in both in style and concept. This could revolutionize the future of resumes. Including a few more features would be great. Some ideas include social links, blogs, social followings, most recent blog posts, company logos, Klout score and so on. Once a couple of the very small bugs are worked out, this will be an awesome platform for people to start utilizing. I am excited to see what this company will be able to do down the line! Be sure to sign up to create a custom infographic today.