Design a Winning Resume

Everyone should have an updated resume on file. But when you’re applying for a specific job, you want to make sure your resume stands out. How do you do this? First of all, you need to understand your audience when writing your content. Second, you need to apply some basic document design principles.

Who is your audience? Regardless of who you’ll be submitting your resume to, it must be professional and follow some basic formatting standards. But the specific content and tone you should create depends entirely upon who will be reading it and what information you need to communicate to them.

Tailor your resume to the specific position you’re applying for. How do you do this? State your objective at the top of the resume in a way that shows you can meet the specific qualifications necessary for the specific job you want. Also, make sure the information you provide throughout the resume is applicable to your prospective employer. Pack a punch with descriptive words that succinctly describe how aspects of your previous positions have prepared you for your next job. Highlight your achievements using specific examples and quantifiable data, rather than simply bragging or making obvious statements such as “I am a hard worker and a dedicated employee.” Show, don’t tell, why you are good for the job. Your resume will reflect who you are and what you are capable of. Make it shine!

But even if you are obviously qualified for the job, a shoddy design or excessive grammatical errors can land your resume in the trash. The appearance, not just the content, of your resume sends a powerful message to potential employers that can greatly influence their hiring decisions. Consider applying these design principles before you send out your resume:

Typography: Choose a font style and size that can be easily read. Script or novelty fonts should be avoided. Serif fonts (such as Garamond or Times New Roman) are good for long sentences because the letters are connected to each other, helping the reader’s eye glide along and read faster. Sans serif fonts (such as Arial or Verdana) are great for headings because they can have a more powerful presence, but reading a lot of text can fatigue the eye.

Hierarchy of Information: Simply put, make sure the most important information comes first. Readers enter documents from the top left corner of the page. This makes it a great location for your name and contact information. The higher up you list something on your resume, the more important the reader assumes it is, and the more likely it is that it will be read. Hiring managers typically only look at resumes for 60 seconds, and won’t read every word. Start sentences with the most important words, in case they don’t read the whole sentence. Make it easy for them to read by creating bolded headings and indentations and lists for various levels of information. This will guide the reader’s eye and break up the information into more manageable chunks. If it takes effort to read and understand your resume, people simply won’t read it.

Templates: Beware of using resume templates provided by your software or downloaded from the internet. While they can be helpful if you don’t know where to start or how to come up with your own design, they have some drawbacks. First, not all templates are created by people who understand good design principles. They may work well for certain people or positions, but may not help you highlight your specific information very well. Second, they are frequently used, so there’s a good chance that your resume will look exactly like dozens of others in a stack. Creating your own design, or at least customizing a template to fit your purposes, will set your resume apart.

It probably goes without saying, but make sure you are qualified for the job you apply for, and that you are 100% truthful in the content you supply on your resume. After those conditions are met, set yourself apart by remembering who your reader is and how people read documents. Good luck, and happy designing!