Creative Career Building

How do you stand out from other candidates when you’re interviewing for a job? One creative way is to use Haiku Deck as a visual resume or to showcase your work, and that’s exactly what our friend Steve Nestor of Staffordshire did.

Steve began his career as a support worker in Bromford Support in 2009 and worked his way up to Marketing Coordinator, with Haiku Deck playing a key role in his promotion. Steve also happens to be one of three winners in our “About Me” contest last year (a fact he mentions on his LinkedIn profile):


My Life In A flash – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires;

Guest Q&A

Haiku Deck: Tell us the scoop! How did Haiku Deck play a role in your new job?

Steve: During a team talk we heard about the power of social media. We were encouraged to begin to tell our own stories and also the stories of the vulnerable people that we help in order to raise awareness of what we do and the real difference that we make to their lives every single day.

Shortly afterwards I sent my first tweet and, from that moment, became a bit addicted to Twitter! I discovered Haiku Deck by accident when I saw a tweet about your app. I downloaded the app that day and produced my first deck, “Support.”


Support – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires;

This deck, along with my blogs, started to get me noticed at work — and when I told everybody that “My Life in a Flash” deck was one of the winners, it was tweeted that a “winning Haiku Deck was better than a CV.”

This deck, along with my blogs, started to get me noticed at work.

As part of my [new] role is to excite and encourage colleagues to use social media to tell stories, one of my tasks during the application process to show how I’d do this in 140 characters. My answer was… Stories create Legends. Stories change the way we think, act & feel. They inspire, stimulate, influence & motivate. Become a Legend #TellYourStory.

I then created my “Stories Create Legends” deck and emailed the link to my interviewers just before my interview.


Stories Create Legends – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires;

Haiku Deck: And what kind of response did your Haiku Deck receive?

Steve: I have found the response to my decks quite unbelievable; there has been so much positivity around them and I have inspired countless colleagues to produce their own Haiku Decks. Now that my role is to promote the work that we do, I’ll be using various media including Haiku Deck to tell the stories of the many vulnerable people that we help.

I’ll be using various media including Haiku Deck to tell the stories of the many vulnerable people that we help.

Haiku Deck: You mentioned that you’re using Haiku Deck on the job — could you tell us a little bit about how?

Steve: My first deck, “Support,” has been shown during management meetings and it is sometimes also used as part of the process of bidding for new work.

I also produced “Why Volunteer?” to coincide with National Volunteers Week, to help raise awareness of the benefits attached to volunteering (something we  help people do, along with finding paid work, education, and training).

My decks have inspired others to use your app, including our Human Resources team. I created a deck outlining the realities of support work that can be used as a job profile for recruiting support workers. This inspired the team to create job profiles for other areas of the business, too.

Steve’s use of Haiku Deck created a wave of inspiration among his co-workers! “Dreaming In Cornish,” by Anna, is one of many Haiku Decks that have been created since Steve introduced the app to his coworkers.

Creative Career Building: Dreaming in Cornish Haiku Deck

Click to view Anna’s full Haiku Deck with Notes

Haiku Deck: What are your best tips for creating a great Haiku Deck?

Steve: I like to use as few words as possible in my decks.

The pictures should be powerful enough to get your message across with just a little help from carefully chosen keywords. Try to avoid the obvious, but don’t make it too cryptic. The message needs to be clear enough to understand but ‘deep’ enough to make the viewer think.

The message needs to be clear enough to understand but ‘deep’ enough to make the viewer think.

Try to add ‘a bit of yourself’ to the deck, and don’t be afraid of making it personal. Use contrasting images to keep the viewer interested.

I also try to not make my decks too long. Apart from “The KangaCrew,” I like my decks to be less than 25 slides.

More Examples

Share Your Story

What’s your story? Find inspiration for your “About Me” Haiku Deck on our “About Me” Pinterest board. And if you have a story about using Haiku Deck for your own career building, let us know in the comments below!