What Is VisualCV? / Overview
The VisualCV reinvents the resume. It’s a better resume, online.
The VisualCV makes a traditional resume come alive with video, pictures and a portfolio of your best work samples and other supporting documents. Informational pop-ups provide background data on the companies you’ve worked at and the colleges you’ve attended. You can securely share different versions with your own network of employers, colleagues and friends, and control who sees what.
Curriculum vitae (CV): A short account of one's career and qualifications prepared typically by an applicant for a position. (Merriam-Webster Online)
The CV dates back to 1902. The shortened form used in the United States and referred to as a resume was adopted shortly after WW2. Either way, it’s a document format that has not changed in decades, even though the Internet has revolutionized the way in which we use and share resumes.
In a practice that continues in some professions today, job candidates used to bring to a first interview a portfolio of compelling samples of their work, along with written references, college transcripts, and documents detailing things like personality tests, awards and even salary details (e.g. a W-2 in the United States).
Employers typically screen candidates through phone and in-person first interviews. Typically these interviews cover a standard set of questions, which today can easily be captured in a video or audio file housed on the Web.
VisualCV brings both the CV and the resume into the modern Web 2.0 world by transforming the way in which resume data is presented, accessed and shared.
Furthermore, VisualCV cuts out time and expense for both candidates and employers by combining the resume, interview audio and video, and a digital career portfolio into a compelling package hosted on a single, easy-to-use Web page.
VisualCV:
- An Internet-based resume that allows professionals to build and manage an online career portfolio that comes alive with informational keyword pop-ups, video, pictures, and social networking.
- Enabling secure sharing of VisualCVs and interaction with others for purposes of networking, discussing best practices, career progression and business development.
Why we created VisualCV (the website, the document format and the company!)
As entrepreneurs, professionals and quite often job candidates ourselves, we simply got tired of dealing with the frustration and inefficiencies of both online and offline recruiting.
The team that brings you VisualCV banded together to provide a solution to ease the frustration that professionals, companies and recruiters have long felt about Internet recruiting and career management.
How do I create my own VisualCV?
A VisualCV transforms the standard resume and brings it alive in three easy steps: create, enrich and share.
- CREATE: First, create a VisualCV by cutting and pasting from your existing resume in Word, PDF or plain text format. Right away, your resume becomes a live Internet document with built-in company and university research. Learn more
- ENRICH: Next, you can easily enrich your VisualCV, making it a proxy for that first interview. You can add video, audio, charts, graphs, work samples, presentations, scanned documents and much more. The multimedia capabilities allow you to present yourself far beyond words on paper. Prospective employers get a full picture of you, your unique qualifications and how you present yourself. Learn more
- SHARE: Finally, you decide who gets to see your VisualCV. Share it with anyone you choose. Share it with your professional network or our database of employers who each have their own company-specific VisualCV. You can even create different versions for different audiences, showing more personal information only to those you trust. Learn more
The VisualCV reinvents the resume. Ultimately, it will reinvent the recruiting business, to the benefit of professionals and employers and recruiters alike.
Want a 60-second visual overview of creating, enriching, sharing, and managing VisualCVs? Take a mini tour