How to write an unconventional resume

by Alice Alessandri & Alberto Aleo

If you are looking for work in a multinational company, you are in the hands of a headhunter or if you’re preparing your resume for an open competition, you should not take this article too seriously. It is extremely challenging to describe our training and professional experience in just a few lines, while making it clear to the reader who we are, what we do and what are our goals. We dedicate this article to all those people who have tried carefully filling out the “International CV” template and then found they were dissatisfied with the result, as it seemed ungenerous and unrepresentative to compress their lives into a single page of a word file. What follows is an attempt to imagine a world where a resume describes merits rather than listing qualifications and includes plans for the future rather than limiting us to what we did in the past. We should question the real function of a resume by analyzing three of its most important sections: education, work experience and personal data.

Education – What have you really learned?

The Spanish poet Antonio Machado said, “Traveler, there is no path, paths are made by walking.” This seems to be a good starting point to tackle the topic of education: are we really sure following pre-charted paths is the only way to learn? To gain knowledge you must try things out, make mistakes, go back again and follow your intuitions, this way you may arrive in unexpected places but you enjoy the journey. So when describing the course of your studies in your resume do not stick with consistency at all costs and do not worry if your path is winding, the important thing is to explain how it has enriched you and what your studies taught you not only as regards a future profession but also as a traveler through life. Still in doubts? Think about all those successful people who have chosen not to plan their life in the smallest detail or decided on a course of study with the same scientific rigor with which you set about a mathematical equation.

Work experience – What are you building?

How many people do you know that, despite all their experience, keep making the same mistakes? Conversely, how many people appear mere amateurs on paper, but are able to succeed where others fail thanks to their optimism and fresh approach? When speaking of your work try to describe professional projects as well as your experience and describe what you want from your work and what your goals are, say whether you have achieved them, and what might have prevented you from doing so until now. Imagine your professional experience as a “work in progress”, where you are still targeting certain objectives. Do not worry about seeming like a dreamer because, as Musil said, “The sense of possibility could be defined outright as the ability to conceive of everything there might be just as well, and to attach no more importance to what is than to what is not.”

Personal Data – What is your true essence?

Certainly, it’s a good idea to say when and where you were born, inform the reader about the sports you do and the languages ​​you know, but are you sure this information is enough to sum up who you are? Try describing how the city where you were born has left an imprint on you, how you learnt these languages and why you chose to study them. If we at Passodue were to read your resume, we would like to hear about your first time abroad and the feelings you experienced as well as the effect that contact with a different culture had on your growth. If you list skiing among your hobbies, we would like to know why you choose to tackle a steep descent against a backdrop of mountains. Describe your true essence and try to convey in words the “tone” of the vibrations of your soul, so that your reader can tune into your world.

People are one of a company’s most strategic “assets”, the pillar on which much of the success of an organization rests. Hiring a new employee is therefore one of the company’s most important and risky investments. Investments require courage, but frequently when people read a resume, they are looking for information that will justify their choice against possible criticism, “Although I feel that the candidate has all the right skills and competencies, if the exact qualifications required are lacking I cannot hire this person because I am basing my decision on objective data.” Similarly, candidates may frequently aim to adapt their resumes to the requirements of the future employer, molding their profile, experiences and goals to what the market expects and neglecting what makes them unique. In the world that we’d like to help create, people invest on other people by considering not only the rational and objective aspects of their lives, but also by reading between the lines of a story to capture true value. When purchasing equipment for your company it makes sense to base your decision on a list of features, but when choosing a candidate go beyond the lists and try to figure out the combination of dreams and beliefs that make this person who he is.

PS Our son Riccardo is looking for a job and has to prepare a resume, but is totally unhappy with sending in a word file. He decides to create a site that can describe who he is, and with more creativity. Click here to see it.

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