How to Create an Interactive Resume on Tableau
By: Fadzil Safuan
Tags: Tableau, Interactive Content, Job Search, Dataviz, Resume

As someone who is new to using Tableau, I sometimes underestimate the capability of the software. It is powerful! Tableau is a software that enables you to visualize the data in your Excel spreadsheets. One of the things you can do with Tableau is to turn your resume into an interactive visualization. What better way to showcase your talent in data visualization, or viz, than to actually demonstrate your skills through your resume. Like many others, I decided to turn my plain boring resume into an interactive one. Here is how I did it and what I learned.

Photo by Remy_Loz on Unsplash

Inspirations

For me, data visualization is like creating art. To create art, you need inspiration. In this case, if you search for “Resume” on Tableau Public’s gallery, you will find 8,886 vizzes. And if you go a step further by searching “Interactive Resume”, there are 18,175 vizzes. That is a huge number. It can be overwhelming to see so many dashboards, and at times I have wished I could unsee some of them. But, who am I to judge? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you don’t want to sort through eighteen thousand dashboards, I recommend you to go here instead.

Tutorial

Just like many other tutorials on the internet, you can also watch a webinar on how to create an interactive resume on Tableau. I started my journey by watching an excellent webinar by Maddie Rawding. She is Tableau’s product consultant and her tutorial is pretty straightforward.

Objectives

Now that you know where to find sources of inspiration and a video to follow while you are working on your project, let’s set the objectives of the dashboard. Treat your dashboard like a piece of land, where every square foot is valuable. Important categories you do not want to miss here are About Me, Link to Portfolio, Contact Info, Work Experience, Education, Volunteer Experience, Soft and Hard Skills, Certifications, Likes and Dislikes, Speaking Engagements, Published Works, Technology Skills, Languages, and Awards.

Data Structure

Structuring data can be quite tricky, but don’t be afraid. Tabulate each objective on a separate worksheet in an Excel workbook. Thank goodness that this type of data viz doesn’t come with a huge amount of data, so data query is quick and easy. When you are listing your skills on Excel, you can rate yourself in terms of what level you are on for each one. Once this is done, you can then start visualizing your dashboard by linking the Excel workbook on Tableau.

Best Practices

It is human psychology to be drawn to the top left corner, so put important information like your photo or your name on this part of the dashboard. It is essential for you to have a unified color scheme on your resume, as you don’t want to overwhelm the reader with striking colors or color blocking. That would be visually excruciating, and you might sabotage your own application.

A fun way to spice up your dashboard is by adding images, icons, and texts to it. This way you can also demonstrate your skill of mixing data with other media. We don’t call it interactive resume for no reason. You can add “Actions” and “Filters” to your worksheet, and link them with other visualizations, so that it becomes dynamic. With such interactivity, don’t forget to include your instructions for these actions. This way viewers will know how to interact with the dashboard. Last but not least, link your portfolio to the dashboard. You might want to include your LinkedIn profile or Medium page in this section.