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English 313 Header Image

Online Résumé

Due Date: Tuesday, September 16th

Submission Name: <resume> (site folder)

WARNING: You *cannot* use MS Word’s “Save as HTML” function for this assignment.

HTML vs. Print

For this assignment, you will create an online version of your résumé that will be linked via HTML to the “homepage.html” file that you created the first week of class. In drafting your résumé, it might be a good idea to create a print version in Word for use in future job searches, but when producing your online version, don’t feel bound by the conventions of the print world. HTML allows you a lot more flexibility than a word processing program, though in terms of page layout, it is fairly limited. Whether you want to reproduce the “look and feel” of your print résumé in HTML is a personal design decision and is entirely up to you.

Home Page

The home page component of this assignment involves making limited updates to the “homepage.html” file that you created during the first week of class. While updating this page is one part of the assignment, you don’t have to produce a finished, professional looking home page at this time. Your home page should be something that you continually update and maintain over the course of the semester as you learn more and more about HTML. But at this time, you only need to include basic information about yourself so you can use the “homepage.html” file as a launching pad for users (such as myself) who want to read your future HTML projects. Think of your homepage as a “Visitor’s Center” in cyberspace, a place where people can begin to understand just who you are.

Résumé

The résumé component of this assignment should be the area where you concentrate the lion’s share of your work between now and the due date. While the style and format of your online version do not have to mirror your print edition, the content and architecture of this page should follow the “standard” expectations for information that most people have when they view someone’s résumé. The genre of the résumé has become fairly standardized over the past few decades, and when prospective employers view your site, they will expect to see certain information arranged in a logical order that allows them to quickly determine if your credentials and experience match their employment needs.

For this reason, you should apply the same principles of information architecture that we have learned so far in designing the format and content of your résumé, both print and HTML. For a good site on how to write a résumé, visit this page at RPI’s online Writing Center:

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/resume.html

Over the years, this site has proven to be very popular with students and professionals all over the globe who are looking for some type of direction and advice on how to produce what can turn out to be a very crucial document in your professional career. As this site mentions right off the bat, the purpose of a résumé is to get you a job interview. So when designing your résumé, try to think like a business owner or human resources manager and come up with a list of information you would want to know about someone you’re about to hire. Making such a list falls under the category of “audience analysis,” which is something you all gained experience with on earlier assignments.

As with these previous assignments, pay particularly close attention to the digital ethos you are creating when you place your finished résumé on the Web. Does the way you present yourself online make you appear like a credible, trustworthy person that someone would want to hire? For example, an email moniker such as <email hidden; JavaScript is required> may sound pretty cool when writing to your friends here at ISU and on the Internet. But if you owned a business that grossed $3 Billion annually and that worked on accounts for Fortune 500 companies, would you hire someone whose email address was “maddog?” Probably not. So think long and hard about the image you’re projecting of yourself to those who visit your site.

Memo of Transmittal

After you have created your two webpages (a résumé and a homepage), you will write a one-page (300-500 words) memo of transmittal to Quinn that explains and justifies the choices you made as you worked on this assignment. For example, you may want to discuss your choice of font(s), background color (if any), images, etc. Your memo should explain these choices in terms of the audience, context, and purpose of the assignment rather than relying on personal preferences (e.g., “I chose purple because it’s my favorite color.”). When your memo is complete, email it to Quinn and bring a paper copy to class.

Evaluation Criteria

Your grade on this assignment will be determined by your performance on the following criteria:

  • Audience–What primary or secondary audiences are you addressing in designing your site? Have you addressed the needs of these audiences?
  • Ethos–What values or attributes are you emphasizing on your résumé ? What impression of you do you want visitors to have? How can you build this impression into your résumé ?
  • Page Design–Is your résumé structured logically and does it support the information needs of the audiences you identified above?
  • HTML Coding–Do your best to make the HTML coding of your site as accurate as possible. However, since this is your first assignment using HTML code, the criteria for evaluating this component will slightly less strict. Think of this part of the assignment as a learning experience to prepare you for future assignments.
  • Memo of Transmittal–How well does your memo explain and justify the decisions you made in completing this assignment? Is the memo structured logically? Does the memo adhere to the conventions of standard written English?