The Do-It-Yourself Facebook Resume Kit in 5 easy steps. The best way to show off your resume on Facebook.

This is a guest post by Claudio Nader. If you’d also like to guest post here on JobMob, follow these guest post guidelines.

Want a resume that looks like this?

Claudio Nader facebook resume/cv

Why this is a great idea

Many job seekers kick off their job search with an email to everyone they know asking for leads. A common problem is that after a few weeks or months, friends and family forget that they’re still looking for a job.

Your Facebook profile resume will constantly remind every visitor about your job search without you needing to send followups. Then when a lead comes to mind, they’ll just need to click ‘Share Profile’.

Now, when sending that first job search announcement, tell people to follow your Facebook profile to see if you’re still available.

Pretty clever, right?

How it works

The new Facebook profile layout displays your last 5 tagged photos across the top, while showing your profile picture on the left.

  • Use your profile picture for a headshot and a brief but hard-hitting summary of your skills & achievements
  • Use the tagged photos as banners for each of your print resume’s sections
  • The caption of each banner image should contain the relevant text from that section of your resume

Here’s how to make yours.

5 easy steps

  1. Create the images
  2. Upload the images
  3. Tag the images
  4. Adjust your bio
  5. Set up the texts

1. Create the images

This is the most complicated step of the Facebook resume creation process, but it’s really not so bad as you’ll see.

To make things easier, I’ve created some sets of Facebook-styled banners that you can download for free and use on your Facebook resume for a slick, “official Facebook” look.

Some banner set samples of resume section headings:

Set of facebook resume section banners

Each set contains at least 6 banners to choose from, and you can download all of the other free sets from the JobMob Facebook page (click now, it will open in a new window).

Want to create your own banners? Each image should be 97 pixels wide x 68 pixels high.

For the profile picture, you’re limited to an image no larger than 180 x 540 pixels.

If you have design skills and aren’t afraid to slice & crop images for cool effect like Claudio, here are some time-saving tools to check out.

Otherwise, follow these simple steps to create a profile picture with a hard-hitting summary using the Pixlr online image editor:

  1. Click ‘Create a new image’
  2. Name it ‘Facebook Profile Picture’, ignore the Presets, set a width of 180 and a height of 540 and click ‘Ok’.
  3. Set the foreground color of the new image to be the same color as the banner set you’ve chosen. Click the big black square beneath the hand tool, and in the popup that appears, replace 000000 with the relevant color code – dark blue is 3B5998, light blue is D8DFEA and white is FFFFFF – then click ‘Ok’.
  4. Select the paintbucket tool and click anywhere in the white area of the new image to change its color.
  5. Import your portrait photo by clicking Layer > ‘Open image as layer’ from the menu bar at the top of the screen. Left-click the imported portrait and hold down the mouse button to drag the portrait into position. Put it near the top of the new image.
  6. Finally, add your text. Select the Type tool (it looks like an A) and click in your image where you’d like the text to appear. In the Text popup, choose a font size 14 or higher, change the font color to match the text of your banner set (see #3 above) and for the Font itself, choose either Lucida Grande or Tahoma. Type your summary text, watching how it appears as you type and pressing Enter whenever you need to start a new line. You can always left-click and hold to drag the text to a better position, while editing it or afterward.
  7. Once you’re done, save your image by clicking File > Save… from the menu bar and saving it to your computer. Pixlr offers the option of saving directly to Facebook but since you don’t know what they’ll do with your password, don’t risk it.

2. Upload the images

For the new profile picture, go to Edit Profile > Profile Picture (in Facebook) and browse for the profile image on your computer.

For the banner images, upload them to a new album in the order you want them to appear on your profile from right to left. Using the sets above as an example, you would first upload the Experience banner, then the Portfolio banner, and so on.

3. Tag the images

Tag yourself in each of the banners but do it in backwards order. Using the banner sets above as an example, this means that the Experience banner would be the last one tagged.

4. Adjust your bio (optional)

By now you can already view your mostly-complete new profile to see how your Facebook resume looks. Instead of your Wall, the key is to check your Info page since that is what non-friends will see.

Depending on which information you’ve already entered in the past, your new resume’s top banner images may not be evenly spaced. In that case, you’ll need to modify your bio until the spacing is fixed.

5. Set up the texts

Each of the 5 banner images now appearing at the top of your profile corresponds to a section of your resume. For each banner image, copy & paste the text from your print resume into the banner image caption and save your changes.

Now when someone clicks one of the banner photos, they’ll be able to read that section of your resume, right there on Facebook.

Bonus tips

Every time someone tags an image of you, it will be added to the images at the top of your Facebook profile. Make sure Facebook sends you a notification whenever someone ‘Tags you in a photo’, so you can hide that photo from blocking one of your resume section banners from appearing.

From each of your Facebook resume sections, include a message and a link for visitors to download your real, print resume.

Finally- don’t forget to choose your square avatar from your new, long profile picture, preferably the part with your face. You wouldn’t want your avatar all over Facebook with only a chunk of your eye and half of 2 words appearing. Do this in Facebook by clicking: Edit Profile > Profile Picture > Edit Thumbnail.

About the author

Claudio Nader started his UK life in London at the end of 2010, just because “Italy is not a country for young men”. After experience at the Municipality of Bologna, he’s available for a good job (in the UK) designing and planning events and other kinds of media communication. You can find Claudio at his blog and on Twitter @claudioandnader.

If you liked this article, you’ll enjoy The 25 Most Creative Designer Resumes You’ll See This Year.

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--Jacob Share

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