Dataviz of the Week: Show, Don’t Tell
July 1, 2009 by Craig Stoltz
This is the most remarkable resume I’ve ever seen.
Michael Anderson's Resume: The Medium is the Message
Talk about the-medium-is-the-message. Marshal McLuhan should be thrumming happily in his grave like a turbine.
Note how this compares to the home page of reigning datavisualist demi-god Edward Tufte, whose bio appears about three screens down, stacked below several sedimentary layers of seminar promotion. Granted Tufte is a demi-god whose acolytes follow him around like Photoshop Deadheads, so doesn’t need to work that hard to sell himself. But still.
I often yammer about how infographics can convey more information–can tell a story–better than prose.
Compare Anderson’s self-presentation to a conventional resume’s gray blocks of letters that most of his peers depend on. It’s clear which document makes a better argument for hiring Michael Anderson.
Maybe before you hire Edward Tufte?
Update: I poked around Anderson’s site and found his old-school PDF resume. It sucks. Sucks wind. Hot, tornadic wind. Dude: What’s with the cursive font? Who the hell would hire you for an infographics job?
Thanks for the kind words about the infographics piece. Sorry you didn’t like my other resume, but this was a response to my disliking my stale, normal resume. And Tufte would HATE it. Seriously… chartjunk.
Thanks again for the kind words,
Michael Anderson
This really is the best resume I have ever seen. If you are looking for work, you won’t be for long! Great job.
I am planning a follow-up article where I go through a real resume line by line and critique it from the perspective of a technical hiring manager. I’d censor out the names of any companies/persons listed as much as possible, of course.