FAQ / General Questions

• What is a VisualCV and what's so cool about it?
• It seems complicated, and I'm no web guru. How can I possibly create my own VisualCV?
• I'm not looking for a job right now. Why would I want to use a VisualCV?
• Will your service cost me anything?
• Will your service work internationally?
• What do I need to do to sign up?
• Will my computer be able to handle your service?
• I don't see any ads. How are you guys going to make money?

Words on paper or on screen can communicate only so much. With a VisualCV, you can enhance the words in your resume with photographs, charts and graphs, video, audio clips, and additional documents (such as letters of recommendation or examples of your work) that paint a richer and more meaningful picture of who you are and the value you offer. A VisualCV also makes it easy for you to add your accomplishments as they occur so you don’t forget about them or face a major rewrite in a rush situation.

In a nutshell, VisualCV is a tool that helps anyone who deals with “about me” kind of information—whether seeking a job or a candidate or just networking—create and view comprehensive, visual, and interactive resumes that stand out from the rest. Tell me more

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Rest assured that you don’t have to be a Web guru to create and share your own VisualCV. In fact, the VisualCV editor makes it a snap to tweak text, add multimedia elements, and rearrange pieces of your VisualCV. And sharing your VisualCV is as easy as clicking a link and telling us who you want to share with. Tell me more

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A VisualCV isn’t just useful when you’re job hunting. Here are some ideas for using a VisualCV other than for job searching:

• Stay visible. A VisualCV is an invaluable way for anyone in a visible career—including executives, speakers, professors, scientists, independent consultants, and recognized industry experts—to communicate their ongoing "personas" to prospective clients, associates, or peers. Showcase your persona in a compelling, easy-to-update VisualCV that you can link to from your email signature, business cards, and other marketing materials.
• Prepare for performance reviews. Even if your current job is your dream job, wouldn’t it be neat to show your employer a VisualCV of your accomplishments come review time?
• Be ready for future job searches. It’s easy to "silently" register your interest in great companies you may want to work for one day. You can quickly update your VisualCV to reflect major projects you’ve worked on or to add a new work sample you’re proud of so you’ll be ready to go if and when you do start looking for a job.

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All basic capabilities of VisualCV.com, including creating and sharing VisualCVs, are free to both professionals and companies. In the near future, we'll be offering subscription levels that provide other services, such as resume writing help, background check certification, and candidate searches. We haven't yet worked out our fee structure for these subscriptions, but we'll post information on our web site when we do.

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VisualCV.com is available worldwide. In fact, more than 50% of the VisualCVs that have been created so far are from members outside of the U.S. and Canada. You can create a VisualCV in your native language, with some limitations—for example, resume sections don't yet fully support special or double-byte characters such as accented or Asian characters. However, we have been making some minor tweaks (such as improving the formatting of phone numbers and introducing time zone preferences) and we will continue to add features to better support our international users.

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Individuals: As an individual, all you need to get started is a valid email address. We’ll create an account for you based on your email address and a login name and password that you choose, and we’ll send you a welcome email with a link to activate your account. Once your account is activated, you’ll be ready to create and share your first VisualCV.

Companies: If you are a company representative, you'll provide your company name and web site address. We'll also need contact information for the person who is authorized to receive resumes and other employment application information. Upon approval, we'll add your company information to our Companies page so professionals can start sharing their VisualCVs with you.

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You don’t need to download any software to create or share a VisualCV. To make the best use of VisualCV.com features, you should have a recent browser version (we've designed and tested VisualCV.com on Internet Explorer 6.0+, Mozilla Firefox 2.0+, and Safari 3.x+) that is set up to allow VisualCV.com to run Javascripts and set cookies. We will check your browser when you log in to VisualCV.com to make sure you are set up appropriately so you can fully experience the VisualCV.com features.

Also, if you plan to enhance your VisualCV with videos, audio clips, photographs, or documents, you should also have a broadband Internet connection and access to tools that can create multimedia files (for example, a scanner to create an electronic version of a paper work sample or a digital camera to make a photograph or video).

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You're right—we don't include ads in a professional (individual) member's VisualCV. (We feel that it’s your personal brand, not ours!) As an individual member, VisualCV.com services are free, and your VisualCVs will always be ad and banner free.

Our revenues will come from additional services we plan to offer to employers, legitimate recruiters acting on their behalf, and other organizations such as professional associations and alumni groups. We see companies and organizations using VisualCV.com in a number of ways:

• At the simplest level, companies can create their own VisualCV, perhaps highlighting why job candidates might want to work there. They can list themselves (for free) in our Company Directory where our members can find and research them and share their own VisualCVs with them. And the company benefits by receiving high-quality VisualCVs versus old-school paper resumes.
• At the middle level, a company or organization can buy a “private-label” version of VisualCV.com, which offers an entity its own branded community of VisualCVs and provides more control over access, privacy settings, member communications, and so on. Our revenue at this level comes from our assistance with customizing VisualCV.com for a particular company or organization and integrating the service with that entity’s business. With the private-label version, an entity receives its own private domain name and can control who creates VisualCVs within its community, how visible its community is, and how the user experience looks. This is a great option for corporate recruiting, mid-large size recruiting firms, associations, and professional networking communities.
• At the highest level, we offer companies and organizations the ability to have their own private-label community of VisualCVs that is tightly integrated with their own applications and business workflows. The entity can customize the VisualCV user experience and incorporate company-specific features into the service.

We’re also rolling out a Partner Marketplace this summer. Companies or individuals will be able to buy listing space in a career-focused Marketplace area of our website, where they can draw attention to their own VisualCV and the services they provide (for example, boutique recruiting, career counseling, or resume writing).  

As part of our commitment to members, we will never sell ad space on your VisualCV, and we will never sell your name, contact details, or VisualCV to any organization. As you can see, earning the trust of our members is vitally important to us—and being transparent about our revenue plans is part of our commitment. Show me your commitment statement

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