By Joe Grimm

Here’s an easy way to dress up your resume or portfolio with a multimedia look and feel: Turn it into an interactive Prezi show.

Prezi was created as a next-generation presentation program beyond PowerPoint or Keynote. It’s free, easy to work with and adds dynamic movement to slide transitions.

It can, for some job-seekers, be a good way to show their work.

The premise is simple. All content for your show goes onto one canvas, rather than as a sequence of slides. Using the circular navigation tool, you tell Prezi where to zoom in, and you specify the order.

By grouping different sections of your resume, you create story lines. If you prefer, you can create one chronological story. The important thing is that you create a story.

By positioning sections of the resume or portfolio, you make the virtual camera through which people view your resume zoom, pan or rotate. Keep it simple.

It’s also easy to embed YouTube videos in your Prezi resume or portfolio. This will give it the multimedia feel that can be so appealing.

“Prezumes” live online, so you can share one just by posting or emailing the link.

If you wish, Prezi can also be used for an interactive cover letter.

Before citing links to examples of Prezi resumes, here are a few tips — starting with some yellow flags:

1. Do not go crazy. Content is still king and it must be strong and well executed. Making bad content move around does not make it better. Movement without purpose is amateurish. Show restraint.
2. Your resume or portfolio are meant to get someone to want to know more about your work and interview you. The resume or portfolio is a means, not an end. It should lead to the next contact.
3. A resume are work samples are no substitutes for networking. Do it all.
4. Organize your Prezi resume into sections on the canvas.
5. Panning and zooming can occur on every slide, but save tilts for transitions between sections.
6. Include a good, short video clip of your work to take advantage of Prezi’s capabilities.
7. Follow standard resume style with your name first and bold or larger type for section headings and names of employers. One exception: Have your presentation begin and end with your name and contact information.
8. Link to a standard resume that can be printed.

For links to examples of job-hunters’ Prezis:

Educator John D. McCarty’s Prezi resume looks like a graphic novel.

Catherine Freeman’s advertising and design portfolio includes video.

Multimedia producer Charity Temple displays some storytelling. (The graphic with this article comes from her Prezume.)