OH! HI THERE…
No portfolio? Checked. No experiences? Checked. Wanna work in the animation industry? Checked and checked. So how are you going to make a strong first impression to help you stand out from other applicants and land a job interview? An animated résumé sounds like a good idea to me!
Have You Met Me Yet?
2D Animation / 4:46 min / Jul 2013
INSPIRATION
When I finished my one-year military service right after my graduation, it came to my awareness that my first job hunting would be a long hard battle. Given the fact that my major didn’t entirely focus on animation, even though my graduation project was a self-produced animation, my portfolio couldn’t show people that I’m skilled and well-experienced with animation production. Frustrated but not yet giving up, I figured a way to promote myself. Although I wasn’t skilled nor experienced, I did have creativity and passion about animation. Those could be my fortes in this battle. Then one day, while I was writing my résumé, the idea came to me. “Why not making an animation for my résumé?” Indeed, it wasn’t common, but creative thinking was not always common. I believed that an animated résumé would stand out from the rest of the applications. Besides, it could also show my passion and the fact that I did have the ability to make a decent animation on my own. Thus began the production of Have You Met Me Yet ?.
PRODUCTION
When the employers watched this video, I wanted them to have the basic ideas of my personality. That’s why I decided to add narration through the whole video. It would be like me personally introducing myself to them without my presence, a pre-interview you might say. And that’s something a traditional résumé can’t possibly do.
Building the structure of the storyline was not so hard. All I had to do was converting the actions that a résumé covered into the scenes of the animation. The tricky part was to decide what to tell and how to tell in each scene. Like I mentioned before, I wanted to show my personality through the video. So I added a sense of humor into the lines but still delivered clear messages. Honesty is also a virtue I value. Therefore I let them know what my disadvantages were but also what my strengths were and how they could make up my weakness.
It’s worth mentioning that by writing the narration of the video, in some way, it helped me prepare my coming interviews. I knew how I could promote myself, what the prospective employers might ask during the interviews and how I should answer them.
