Are employers becoming more open to graphical resumes? The boring, standard resume format hasn’t changed much despite some attempts at infographics and video.

A Wall Street Journal article indicates that acceptance may be increasing for resumes that look more like a social profile:

The stodgiest of business documents is in the midst of its most extreme makeover yet—whether employers want it or not. Gone are the utilitarian, black-and-white documents covered in bullet points. As Gen Z enters the workforce, companies are seeing digital CVs filled with artistic flourishes, including illustrations of college mascots, logos of past employers and icons to denote hobbies such as home renovation and watching movies.

Particularly for jobs in fields like marketing, graphical resumes are more common. Candidates might include an avatar or a section called “By the numbers.”

For more traditional fields, it’s a bigger risk: a visual resume might get you noticed but not for the right reasons. For any jobs, bitmojis and other images that seem childish don’t represent candidates in the best light.

Resume image source.

Discussion:

• How traditional is your resume? Would you consider adding graphics? Why or why not?

• In addition to marketing, which fields might be more open to a graphical resume?

• What’s your view of the resume shown above? What about this Microsoft template resume?