Resume Map

Simple question: why don’t geographers spatialize their resumes? I think the answer is that, in the homogeneous world of human resource departments, submitting a map probably won’t get you very far in the hiring process. But when you think about it, why not? After all, space is precisely what geographers care about most (and what cartographers care about representing): spatial relationships are what you should hire us to figure out. I started thinking about this after hearing Chris Tucker speak about his newproject MapStory: why not organize knowledge spatially? So I set myself the task of mapping out my resume. Below are some examples using freely available, online tools. I set myself the task of setting each one up within an hour both to <shameless plug> make my resume that much cooler </shameless plug> and to provide a bit of insight as to how each of these platforms lies… er, works for the average user. If you want to see an old fashioned resume you can find one via Linkedin or see a PDF version here.

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ArcGIS ONLINE: ESRI is a good place for most GIS folks to start because it works well with their desktop environment and is immediately comprehensible. I like working with web-based platforms because there’s no software download. The downside is that (without getting into the code) you have little control over legend, which takes up an awful lot of space (my GIS trainings in Bangkok got bumped out of frame) and there doesn’t appear to be an immediate way to handle clustering: zoom to the U.S. State of Georgia or my work in the Congo Basin to see how much I’ve actually done there.

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GOOGLE MAPS: Well, Google just generally scores really high marks for being ridiculously easy to use and, again, it’s web-based (no software download). I played with both Fusion Tables (which is a cinch to update) and Google maps (I couldn't find an immediately easy way to link Google Maps to my Fusion Tables maps, which offer less customization). The downside is that Google seems more run by developers than cartographers and embeddable maps have no legend. Clustering remains a problem and you don’t get as many base-map choices as you do with ESRI.

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MAPBOX: Okay, so map box took waaayyy longer than an hour and I had to download TileMill. What can I say? Sexy as hell: that’s what. Mapbox gives you, hands down, the most cartographic and design control. If you already write CSS or HTML learning CartoCSS will come very quickly. Although I did have a fair share of bugs while crafting the map in TileMill and exporting to MapBox, I found the online support to be incredibly quick and helpful. For a freebie service this was impressive. So, on the balance, a lot more work for a quick map but well worth it.

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