Yesterday I got a notice that VisualCV will be closing down shop at the end of this month. The interesting thing is that I thought that I had erased my profile from VisualCV back in the summer (or in the early autumn). It's nice that they will be completely destroying all the data from their servers and destroying all their backups.

I had started using VisualCV when it first came out, mostly because Guy Kawasaki was one of the notable high profile users, so my rationale "If it's good for Guy, it's good enough for me."  At that point I had already created a LinkedIn and a Jobster account and I also had (and still have) my CV on my website, so I really didn't have much use for VisualCV.  As a good Web 2.0 early adopter I decided to try it out anyway. The idea behind VisualCV was that it wasn't just a resume, it was a CV, a complete list of your accomplishments. You could list all of your affiliations, any social media profiles (like LinkedIn) that you wanted to include, education and employment history, you could get recommendations which you could add to your profile (like LinkedIn) and you could also attach assets, like reports and papers you've written and presentations that you've presented.  Check out Gary Sample's VisualCV for example. You could also download you VisualCV as a PDF and hand it out to people.

The idea behind this is was pretty good, but I think it fell a bit short in execution. People who know HTML (like me) can, and do, create their CVs on their websites.  Others could use VisualCV, but LinkedIn provided (I think) a better proposition.  For me, there just wasn't much to keep me using the service or to provide an incentive to reproduce information that I already had in at least 3 other places.

Oh well, adieu VisualCV.


Here's the full notice:

Dear VisualCV Member
We regret to inform you that the VisualCV.com website will be ceasing operations, effective December 30, 2011.
Since our launch almost four years ago we've been gratified by the response to VisualCV, and how it has enabled thousands of professionals to better represent themselves online. Even more importantly we have been delighted to see VisualCV help people secure significant new career positions. However, we have been unable to turn the site into a viable, self-supporting business and therefore we reluctantly made this decision.
We recognize that many of you need time to recover your resume data from VisualCV -- which is why we are providing you with thirty days' notice. We recommend saving a PDF copy of your current VisualCV. You can easily do this by clicking on the button on the bottom of the page you see when viewing or editing your VisualCV. We also recommend you separately save any images, videos or documents in your portfolio that you do not currently have stored somewhere else.
To ensure we meet all our members' privacy concerns, we will destroy all user data once website operations have ceased. This includes any and all backups we have. As a result, once the deadline has passed it will not be possible for us to recover any member data. You can be assured that we will not be providing any user data to third parties of any kind.
We will be contacting the small number of paying customers that still have active subscriptions to arrange a prorated refund for the months remaining on their annual subscription.
Thank you for all your support over the past four years. We wish you well in your future career endeavors.
Best Regards,
The VisualCV Team
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