You are a human being, right? And you're trying to get another human being to hire you, right? So why are you writing your resume as if you were a soulless robot? YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS! (Part of a day-long training seminar for the UX Professionals Association of Los Angeles.)

1. Your Resume and Bio:
The Hardest Writing You
Will Ever Do
Presented by David LaFontaine
Director of Professional Development
UXPALA, April 29, 2017

3. What is a contextual resume?
“A way of going beyond the simple
bullet-point chronological resume
that is stilted and artificial, and
instead looking at a way to tell a
story and reveal the human being
that they might actually want to
work with…”
… as opposed to…

4. Admini-speak
Jargon
Artificiality
Cold, calculated
Lack of humanity
These are hallmarks of
a resume that is written
according to a formula,
rather than to tell a story

6. OK, let’s deconstruct Dave’s resume…
Really? You’re
going to do me
like this?

7. First Content Area
Your value proposition, as clearly and emphatically as you
can state it.
This is your “elevator pitch”
What have you done?
What is your process?
How did you work?
And how is that going to translate to this new position?

8. First Content Area
Tip:
Work with other people on this.
Run it past them, and get a bunch of opinions from people
you trust.
Try out “informational lunches” to see if you can get an HR
pro to help you out.

9. First Content Area
Danger:
Don’t try to lie.
Don’t use “admini-speak” in this.
It should be a paragraph that flatters you, shows your
humanity, and makes the HR person nod and continue
reading.

10. 2nd Content Area: Skills & Experience
If you’ve got the HR manager reading this far, then you’ve
got them hooked.
Now you just have to back up the statement you made in
the first content area with the stuff you’ve done, and the
skills that allowed you to do it.

12. 2nd Content Area: Skills & Experience
Write one sentence that describes what was the most
compelling thing that you did on that job
Write one sentence that describes what the results were of your
work. Numbers or results that you can point to are particularly
compelling to the bean-counters.
Repeat for each gig that is relevant.
Boom! That’s it! You’re out.

13. Content Area 3: Further Qualifications
If you’ve written and published articles, or done
presentations, or performed charity work - this is the place
to put it.
Don’t go overboard on making it sound flowery or
important. State it plainly. They will ask you about it. Then
you can explain. This is a good thing.
DANGEROUS BUT MAYBE A BONUS: Make it funny

14. Content Area 4: Software/tech
This is kind of a controversial point. Some companies really
are sticklers on you knowing how to use the flavor of UX
design tool that they use in-house.
But let’s be honest here: most UX tools really are pretty
intuitive.
This is not Photoshop, or AfterEffects or Maya we’re talking
about.

15. Content Area 4: Software/tech
Experts are split as to whether or not you should list any front-
end development skills here. Some recruiters say that having
skills in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, jQuery, etc., are things
that can kick you into a MUCH higher income bracket (i.e. make
you a “UX Unicorn”).
Others say that having coding skills detracts from your design-
focused story that you’re telling.
Your mileage may vary.

16. Content Area 5: Education, associations
If you have certifications, put them here.
Don’t depend too much on school experience to carry you
through.
Some people take advantage of this space to get a little
playful. Depending on your personality, and how you feel
about the kind of company that you want to work for, this
can be effective at making you stand out.

17. Content Area 6: Keywords
Yes, we know. Keywords? WTF? What are we doing here?
Meta-stuffing a sleazy clickbait site?
Reality check time.
A lot of the screening of resumes is no longer even done by
humans. It’s by bots that scour pages, looking for matches
between the keywords in the text of your resume, and the
text of the job description.

18. Content Area 6: Keywords
It may seem kind of spammy - but having
this section at the end of your resume
allows you to get the message across to
the human eyes, by having the compelling
content first …
… while still getting the robots on your
side by having the words they’re looking
for in the document.

19. Step 7: Unleash arrogant designer!

20. Make it look like a designer’s resume
1. Have your name large, but not overpowering. The HR
interns will be flipping through these quickly, and you
want yours to be able to stands out
2. Make sure your name appears on pg. 2 - the intern
may not staple the pages together
3. Use color to make it stand out. But not Day-Glo
eyebleach colors

21. Make it look like a designer’s resume
4. DO NOT use fancy fonts. If you email the .docx to
someone to review, and they don’t have a fancy font
page installed, it will default to some basic font and all
that time you spent getting the margins just so will be
wasted
5. Divide your document into the content areas we just
went through

22. Thanks!
For more about Dave (seen here teaching in an underground bunker at a
former military hospital in Ecuador),
please visit his site at: http://davidlafontaine.com