
Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github - philip1209
https://github.com/philipithomas/cv-philipithomas
======
Timothee
I'm sorry but I don't get it. What's interactive about it?

It looks like a fairly regular resume to me except for the fact that it's
rendered as HTML, but that's not really something new. Sure, it's actually
built dynamically with a few PHP functions, but the way each element is built
could be smarter (e.g. you have HTML markup in the function's arguments
sometimes which seems to beat the purpose a bit).

I'm not trying to be a downer but I was expecting something different and I
feel I'm missing something.

If I were to do something like that, I would probably do it in Markdown with
Jekyll. Right now, your index.php mixes a lot of presentation with content and
I feel that one benefit of Markdown+Jekyll is that you have a readable
Markdown file that can be made into a nice looking static HTML page.

------
raganwald
First off, I am fifty years old, so I'm fond of traditional phrases like
_Curriculum Vitae_. That being said... I suspect many people may find it a bit
stuffy. Also, I don't think that you can have it both ways: If you use old-
fashioned words, you should present it on high-quality paper, lovingly
typeset. It strikes me as a little out of place on an interactive web site.
JM2C, I'm not sure how you could meaningfully A/B test it.

Second, if you are seeking a programming job, a program is obviously a
portfolio piece. Am I correct in assuming that were I to hire you for a
project, your preferred approach would be to mix HTML with PHP code that in
turn embedded HTML in strings?

If that's what you want to suggest, this is the right approach. If you want to
present different options, I would put them to work in your résumé even if
they might be a little overkill for your needs.

~~~
snowwrestler
In the U.S. "curriculum vitae" has a specific meaning, which is to convey the
research interests, history, and publications of an academic researcher. They
are typically several pages long.

This is not a curriculum vitae, and should be called a resume. Particularly
since the guy is still in academia where they tend to take their bureaucratic
nomenclature very seriously.

~~~
aviraldg
In the rest of the world, curriculum vitae is almost synonymous with résumé
and is used more often to convey the same meaning.

------
dutchbrit
Shameless plug, but I used a jQuery timeline plugin to create my CV, since I
found regular CV's boring. It's not that detailed, but it's less dull in my
eyes. Still need o add my LinkedIn profile that will serve as the boring
version. Ps. Doesn't look great on mobile yet..

<http://www.samgranger.com/cv/>

I still need to change a lot and I might end up taking a completely other
approach. But I want to make it as interactive as possible. Probably will end
up writing my own plugin.

My old CV: <http://www.samgranger.com/old_cv/>

~~~
robeastham
Another shameless plug. I'm slowly bootstrapping MightyCV - a resume platform
with hacker leanings. It has integrations with HN, github and StackOverflow
along with some other cool features.

<http://robeastham.mightycv.com>

If you like the look of it you can sign up for an invite at
<http://www.mightycv.com>

~~~
Surio
+1 for building something like this to scale (rehashed from another reply
below, but circumstances are the same) ;-)

Might test it later and let you know.

------
creativeembassy
If we're doing feedback on version-controlled-via-Github "interactive"
resumes, my I present mine?

<http://judy.github.com/>

\- It parses via the hResume microformat, although I've never been able to
fully test that. Is there a way to do that now?

\- It prints quite nicely; there are hidden sections that allow me to move the
contact information up top when you're printing it, more like a traditional
resume.

\- It's responsive. It should look good on any phone, tablet, or traditional
display.

Please, please fork it if you like it. You have my full permission. (I mean,
just don't copy the content, mmmkay?)

~~~
creativeembassy
Actually, I'm going to reply myself as I'm looking at it again. I built this
when Bootstrap was hot shit; it's now a bit cliche-looking, so to speak. I may
play with the styles.

I've also gone back and forth on having a picture or not. That pic is on every
other "resume" site out there, like Dice or StackOverflow Careers or LinkedIn.

I'm also not looking for a job currently, but I AM looking to speak at more
events, now that I'm doing open source work for a living. I wonder how the
structure should change?

~~~
Surio
>> I've also gone back and forth on having a picture or not.

It gave me a first impression of you, one that was more affable/likable (a
better picture of you, that your skills or GPA cannot give). So, in my view,
leave it there.

>> but I AM looking to speak at more events, now that I'm doing open source
work for a living.

Why don't you search for interesting tech gatherings in and around your areas
and offer yourself as a lineup speaker? One example:

[http://www.meetup.com/find/?keywords=hacker+news+&userFr...](http://www.meetup.com/find/?keywords=hacker+news+&userFreeform=&mcId=&mcName=&categories=&view=masonry&sort=default&radius=Infinity&offset=0&psize=30&currentpage=1)

------
Surio
Like a few others, I too found it an average CV (It is something very similar
to what I myself have, and I consider myself an average (-; ). To be honest,
there are a few others in the comments that I gravitated towards more (It's a
matter of personal preference of course). Sure, the Progress bar looks new,
but others too have it on them -- see v33ra's response below.

You took a chance and placed it on HN for the self-promotion/
exposure/publicity and you were (luckily) rewarded. As you can see from the
comments below, there are a lot of such efforts out there and all of them very
commendable as well. They just didn't feel promotional enough like you, to
place it here in the first place (and all of them had also placed it on GitHub
before you, so open sourcing is not an USP either).

But I felt there there was neither anything "stand-out" about the CV, nor was
there anything "interactive". It is a web resume like everyone else's and
that's it.

For inspiration, here's what I would consider an impressive (as in look-and-
feel) web CV and something close to an "interactive" web CV:
<http://www.chrisharrison.net/>

My two bits.

~~~
hluska
Sorry to be 'that guy', but are you sure you attached the correct link? Chris
Harrison's CV is (sadly) in pdf on his website!

~~~
Surio
Hey! No worries. ;-)

Remember, we are speaking interactive+web+CV in this thread. So, basically,
the entire website is his CV (Research, Visualizations, Fun, Travel -- Top
right corner).... You interact with the site and you learn about all his
skills (in a very fun, very tangible and informed manner). Also, the teaser
animated gif that showcases a few of the "cool" things he's working on, are an
excellent teaser/appetiser, don't you think?

Anyway, I suggest you keep a few hours free and sit down with your favourite
bevvy and then start clicking..... That's how it's for me with his site every
time ;-)

EDIT: If you liked the design and presentation of that CV, please upvote the
original comment so the site gets some visibility that it deserves as an
interactive and constantly evolving "skills" showcase. (He's no relative of
mine, and I have nothing to do with him either personally or professionally)

------
jbranchaud
I like mostly everything I see, but I have one criticism. The bars in the
technical section seem arbitrary. It seems that a person viewing this CV
wouldn't know quite what to take away from it. To start, I am assuming this is
some sort of proficiency. The proficiency of a skill is relative _only_ to the
proficiency of the other skills which doesn't tell a person much. Is there
some way that you can give the bar a baseline to work from. Something along
the lines of 'no experience' -> 'comfortable' -> 'proficient'.

------
eamsen
As a programmer, it never occurred to me that you would _not_ keep your
resume, be it online or on paper, under version control.

Your resume looks good, but I have some (personal) objections to it.

The bright background, most people seem used to it, but I don't like it;
something more subtle (gray) could make the site look more smooth.

The free space, just because you can scroll, it does not mean that you should
waste screen estate like that; e.g. on a 23" screen, almost half of the screen
is occupied by your name.

The skill bars are a controversial topic. I am considering them for my resume,
too, but to me setting the values seems rather arbitrary.

Section priorities, visually the skill bars take up a huge amount of space,
yet the projects section (which is more important, because it's providing
proof) looks like some background noise due to its size and different
background color.

I think it's a good start and can become a great online resume!

It's always easier to judge other people's work, so you are free to punch
back, you'll find my resume at <http://me73.com> (WIP).

PS: If I was in the position of deciding whether to hire you or not, I
wouldn't; given your experience section, you already seem to be actively
holding 7 positions, how could you have any time left for my business?

------
v33ra
Good one.

Sometime back, I designed my resume on similar lines. I used hResume
microformats and some CSS goodies too.

Here's the live resume: <http://veerasundar.com/resume/> and a blog post
explaining the design: [http://veerasundar.com/blog/2012/06/redesigning-my-
resume-wi...](http://veerasundar.com/blog/2012/06/redesigning-my-resume-with-
html5-css3-and-hresume/)

~~~
Surio
Looks nice! I liked it.

One (minor?) feedback:

Opinion on whether "Ninja" is awesome or uncool is divided even within HN. See
recent discussions on "Product is a byproduct" thread. Now, I am trying to
imagine how it might be perceived in conservative working environments like
Indian workplaces.

IMO, keep the wording and ditch the Ninjas. Ultimately, "what matters in life
is how you see yourself"[1]

There must be a way to highlight which are your best skills, like this OP's
resume progressbars?

[1]
[http://blog.robinleehatcher.com/.a/6a00d8341cb0ee53ef0148c75...](http://blog.robinleehatcher.com/.a/6a00d8341cb0ee53ef0148c75de1a8970c-300wi)

~~~
v33ra
//There must be a way to highlight which are your best skills, like this OP's
resume progressbars?//

In fact, I do have one similar to progress bars. Have a look at the skills
section in home page (<http://veerasundar.com>) where I show a strength bar
for each skill.

When I ported the skills section, I just decided not to include the progress
bar.. may be I should add it there too.

~~~
Surio
>> may be I should add it there too

No. That was a good call on leaving it out. For your layout and font size, the
progress bars add no value (in fact it has the opposite effect).

For your layout, I would recommend a colour scheme of four colours, with a
certain colour denoting expert and certain colour denoting novice, and others
in between. Have legend on the top saying what is what and that will provide
the same effect.

------
alexholehouse
Great to see a fellow Wash U student on here - nice work. One thing - is there
any way to export it as a pdf?

I know this kind of defeats the purpose, but some people/companies may still
want to print these things out, or at least have them on file where they have
a static copy (as in it won't change automatically), so having control over
what that pdf looks like might be useful.

Just a minor point though, love the design.

~~~
creativeembassy
You raise a good point. If I attempt to print it, Chrome has a terrible time
rendering it for print; it's completely unreadable. I think that may just be
the custom fonts used. OP should figure that out with a print stylesheet.

------
jfaucett
awesome job! Looks great, just forked :) Also I was looking at the upcoming
features list, and I think definitely the pdf functionality would be cool (I'm
thinking the fpdf lib - know a better one?). Another idea for a feature would
be to give this an REST api for xml, json, and you can then just make an
appropriate call to it ( /resume.json, /resume.xml, etc). Again nice!!

~~~
zrail
I set up my resume[1] with PDF exports using Docverter. It takes Markdown or
HTML and turns it into PDFs and Word docs.

[1]: <http://www.bugsplat.info/resume.html>

(Disclaimer: I also built Docverter)

~~~
jfaucett
this is a really well done project, did you build the whole app yourself?

EDIT: I guess you just answered this :) awesome job, it looks amazing!

~~~
zrail
Thanks! I'm pretty happy with it. The integration turned out to be really
easy.

------
flyinglizard
Really cute, props on the originality. The general design is good (I loved the
skills bars!), but your Experience sections looks a bit too wall-o-text. I
can't imagine reading through all that.

If I were you I'd try reducing the word count as much as possible as well as
applying a very very subtle background shade for each position to set them
apart (or something similar to that).

Anyway, awesome stuff.

~~~
philip1209
Thanks for the feedback. I want to have better info on the individual
companies by somehow incorporating their logos - I'm considering a modal or a
popover at the moment.

The subtle grey background is a good suggestion. I'll experiment with some
things, and if you do anything cool on a fork, please put in a pull request!

------
TannerLD
Cool idea. This is something I've wanted to do for a while. I'll have to fork
this later for my own use.

Few things I noticed that could be improved. Your technical section isn't very
clear on what the graphs mean. Do the bars mean the amount of time you've used
that technology, the number of projects you've built with that technology, or
your experience? It's creative, but it's hard for me to understand what they
mean (especially relative to one another).

I also noticed that you didn't include a print CSS. Yeah, physical resumes are
not great, but they won't go away for a while. It would be good to have a
print CSS that replicates generally what print resumes looks like. Right now
it doesn't look very good. It wouldn't be hard to fix.

On another design note, I think it would look better if the pill links didn't
have a blue underline on hover.

------
imjared
1) If you're in the US like you say you are, this is a resume, not a CV. 2)
The "website" link for Food Trucks Near Me does not work.

Also, I'm a bit baffled by these graphs. While they look nice, I'm not sure
what they're conveying. Is there an endpoint for learning/competency (100%)
like a bar graph would suggest? If anything, I think a pie chart might reflect
your abilities better since it doesn't claim that a College Senior is 50%
done/proficient/knows everything about Python or whatever (I don't claim that
you're not awesome with Python but that's quite the bold claim, even for
someone with many, many years of experience).

Otherwise, looks good and definitely beats a paper resume.

------
JCordeiro
I like the way you outlined your skill levels using progress bars. I've always
found it tough to describe how good you are with a certain programming
language. Saying "proficient with Java, PHP, etc... doesn't really attest well
to your skills.

------
InfinityX0
I've read/heard that it's best to flip your experience with education unless
you want to be viewed as someone entry-level. When education is the best thing
you've done, sure, list that first. But when you've created things like an
actual business, you want to highlight that first and foremost.

Like the inefficiencies of a call to action being hid at the bottom of a page,
you want to highlight your best value proposition (most likely to be the most
recent thing you've done) closest to the top.

------
jmitcheson
Nice work, it looks really good.

One minor (and I mean _really_ minor) design thought: in the section near the
bottom "Selected Projects", there are grey buttons and blue buttons; in the
close proximity of the blue buttons, the grey buttons sort of look like they
are inactive or disabled, at first. I put my mouse over them and figured out
they were indeed active links, but maybe someone non-technical might not do
that.

~~~
philip1209
Good point - thanks!

Edit: Site updated - the buttons are now green.

------
sainttex
I hope this catches on as a trend. A similar setup has worked great for me for
some time now. Don't forget your print media specific styles though...

------
holgersindbaek
Your website - <http://philipithomas.com> \- has exactly the same design as
the - <https://svbtle.com> \- network.

Are you part of that network (if so... how did you do it?) or are you just
really copying on a grand scale?

------
ceras
This is very long and there is a lot of white space (hard to skim). I honestly
would not enjoy having to read this, and the lengthy anti-skim style comes off
as somewhat arrogant to me.

Resumes are typically one page, so you should really consider either
supplementing this with a one-page version or shortening it.

------
realguess
The part I like is version-controlled on GitHub. Now if I can just 'git log'
my employment history ...

------
MojoJolo
I don't get it why you said it's interactive. But I like the simplicity of the
design. I also built mine, but not in Github, well here
<http://jpbalb.in/resume.html>

Just a thought though, is self picture important in the resume?

~~~
Surio
>> is self picture important in the resume?

Especially if you're the greatest and the one and only.... Mojo.....Jolo ;-)

OK, seriously though, there is no hard and fast rule on this one.

But in all, it is not a bad idea to keep a portrait with one's CV. There are
very good reasons why it will be taken well, rather than why it won't be taken
well. If you already have it there, just leave it there. Remember to update it
periodically though. That is very important.

------
calpaterson
I'm confused about the date format. I'm British, and was expecting an American
format (even though you confusingly call this a CV instead of a resume) but it
looks like it's in British format. Perhaps you could remove the ambiguity by
using "January 2012"?

------
noinput
Congrats on making Eagle. There are so few of us out there.
</left_handed_shake>

~~~
philip1209
Thank you! Justifiable contentiousness of the parent organization aside, I am
proud of the achievement. In terms of a resume, the Eagle award is unique as
the one part of pre-college life that will stay on the resume forever.

------
xyzzyb
By interactive do you mean you made a webpage for your resume? That's been a
good idea (for tech/programming jobs) for years now.

Shameless example, mine: <http://stephenballnc.com/resume/>

~~~
Surio
You had my admiration, with the Ubuntu theme ;-)

------
debaserab2
If you are really that far along with your PHP skills, I don't think
presenting an index.php as embedded HTML with a few string assisting PHP
functions grants a lot of confidence to a knowledgeable employer about your
skillset.

~~~
philip1209
I honestly started with an index.php because that's the easiest way to serve a
static site on heroku. I just intended to put up a static site, then built a
couple functions for efficiency in formatting. It wasn't intended to be a
demonstration of my programming ability; it was designed to be something quick
thrown up in a day.

~~~
kami8845
>It wasn't intended to be a demonstration of my programming ability; it was
designed to be something quick thrown up in a day.

Well yeah then that's EXACTLY the impression you're gonna give off. This is
the first thing a potential employer will see if you're already giving off a
"I don't really care about the code" vibe I don't see how that inspires a lot
of confidence in your abilities and especially mindset down the line.

------
knodi
Isn't this kind of an over kill, i mean how often does one update their
resume.

------
nardsurfer
Great idea! I'm also working on an interactive resume, but havent finished or
pushed the code to github yet. <http://www.stevewight.com/resume>

------
biscarch
You inspired me to build out a personal website for my YC app.

Check it out here if you're interested:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4676920>

------
maccard
Fantastic looking. Forked, and going to deal it with myself tomorrow!

------
phektus
I have my resume like this but I also made sure it is easy for others to make
their own at my site's expense: <http://www.cvstash.com>

~~~
Surio
+1 for taking the effort to build something to scale. :-)

Hmmm... I checked it.. Good landing page, but your "Sample Resume Preview"
which is supposed to load this:
<http://www.cvstash.com/profile/john_doe_EUQ8q3gDV>

instead redirects to this: <http://www.cvstash.com/resume/default/index//>

I would like to see the preview of a Resume, before wanting to actually go
ahead and try it, no?

EDITED to add: Even clicking on your name:
<http://www.cvstash.com/profile/arbie_samong_mfvvK163U> leads me to the front
page. Looks like I have to sign up before the site decides to show me
anything.

EDIT 2:::

I bit the bullet and clicked JOIN NOW, and got this message:

Internal error

Ticket issued: unrecoverable

Man, I am so sorry to be the bearer of one bad news after another......

I'll give it a few hours before checking back. :-)

------
asparagui
Cool to see somebody else who was @ startup weekend CoMo. I thought your idea
was one of the better ones in terms of actually having a revenue plan. Are you
still pursing it?

~~~
philip1209
Thanks! Which team did you compete with? The project is on the backburner at
the moment as I'm wrapping up midterms and interviewing for a job. One of the
GPs in my VC firm put me in contact with some great tools for getting better
margins, so we have the resources to continue pursuing it. It is just not a
priority at the moment.

Also, did you see the article I wrote for the business journal about the
event?
[http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/BizNext/2012/10/comm...](http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/BizNext/2012/10/community-
voices-philip-thomas-at.html?page=all)

~~~
asparagui
Cool article! I wrote some Javascript/iOS code for the FundRunners project. We
only had six people, ;-)

------
danso
This is a nice start but you're missing a huge opportunity to show off your
sites in a visual way. Why do you think outbound links are the best way to
represent your work?

~~~
philip1209
I'm planning on tweaking with modals that show logos and descriptions of
specific projects and companies. The other option is having logos appear on
over of the names.

I really wanted content to be king, so I didn't include the immediate clutter
of a bunch of logos and galleries. The modals make it more interactive.

------
olalonde
You founded two startups, you are an analyst for a VC fund, yet you are still
"looking for employment after graduation"? Only on HN...

~~~
wj99
And FFS everybody please, please. quit calling your website a "startup".

------
maccard
Also, to anyone who forks this and decides to use, you might want to remove
the authors original google analytics!

~~~
philip1209
Good point - I just added that to the "Building Your Own" section of the
Readme.

~~~
maccard
I'm not criticising, I'm only trying to complement what you've already done.
The buttons show an underline on Safari on OSX when they're hovered over. I'm
working on it now, and will post a link with my fixes later on. Fantastic
work, thanks so much!

~~~
philip1209
Thanks for the positive feedback! I can look at the CSS soon, but if you want
to put in a pull request on Github that would also be appreciated!

~~~
Stratoscope
Best way to fix those (Website-->) buttons is to remove them. They are very
distracting! Just make the titles links with some suitable style.

------
latchkey
Props for using CloudFlare.

Negative for the JavaScript error on the page. You need to load jquery before
you load bootstrap.

~~~
philip1209
Whoops, corrected. Thanks.

Also, I'm a huge Cloudflare proponent.

------
TallboyOne
It looks fairly average to me.. but it is great your getting exposure. I hope
something good comes of it.

------
philip1209
Live website: <http://cv.philipithomas.com>

------
dylanhassinger
This is awesome!

------
criveros
in your about section, why do you talk about yourself in third person?

------
adambom
bootstrap

------
mkramlich
I love those skill bars.

Because they say something meaningful, potentially, namely what you're
relatively better or worse at, more or less experienced at. Without committing
the sin of telling the world what your objectively absolute rating is in some
supposedly global but in actuality undefined frame of reference.

Example: "I'm a 6/10 on Apples and an 8 on Oranges, and Bob over there says
he's 9 on Apples and 1 on bananas. Turns out in actuality I'm way better at
Apples than Bob, but Bob kicks most people's asses at bananas!"

~~~
FuzzyDunlop
I disagree, because they're completely arbitrary and a full bar can suggest
that you either know everything, or you can't improve any more.

Trying to represent knowledge or skill on a finite scale is a bad idea, I
think. If I got this CV in a pile I'd want to see examples to demonstrate that
skill in place of this section, not a set of percentages pulled from thin air.

~~~
S4M
Agree. The OP should mention what he has done or what he knows with the
technologies and languages he is assessing himself.

For example:

Matlab: built a model to do X in matlab, used very frequenty to do my reports
for two years.

