Why create my own CV presentation library?
- I wanted to brush up on some JavaScript.
- I wanted something on my website that would stand out and make it easier. to get past the initial stages of recruiting and allow me to find interviews and freelance work much easier.
- There was no good existing solution to the problem. There is shuffle.js which solves part of it, but making my own would allow finegrained control.
- It seemed like it wouldn't take a long time to get a solution out.
- I can blog about it, which again will help me get past the initial stages of recruiting.
- Linked solves some of the problems below but it is more of a summary than a tool for organizing complex information. I feel that putting this functionality in linked would be superfluous as it is more of a search tool than something that gives in depth information about a candidate.
The problem: Our primary means of accurately sharing information for the past (check time frame on this) has been through books. Before this our most accurate way of sharing information was through keepers of knowledge such as village elders and shamans(check this). While this method of keeping information was not necessarily accurate it has the advantage of being very intuitive in that you quite literally just need to ask for information in order for it to be available to you.
We therefore have had to rely on other means to replicate this such as table of contents and indexes. These how-ever are a general purpose solution and with information it is possible to create intuitive and fast ways of displaying information.(Look at this sentence again)
Looking at CVs as a general problem that is solvable thanks to information technology:
The Problem: CVs have been around for a long time, people are used to them and changing this format will force people to spend more time if they want to read your CV which will likely turn them away. To solve this the CV should be presented in a standard format and only change when people choose to interact with it.
Recruiters have lots of CVs that they need to go through. Often recruiters skim through CVs to find what they are looking for but once they find it they may be interested in other aspects of the potential candidate. A way to filter information by tags make this process faster.(combined or singular)
This raises another problem of making tags provide readable information that is useful to what recruiters are looking for in a chosen field. Tags should therefore be customizable to accommodate any niche needs in this regard.(Look at sentence) For my CV I have identified roles, skills and technologies as useful filters.
The Code: