Companies all over the world go through millions of resumes every day. In the dog-eat-dog world of big business, it pays to have a resume not only with attractive credentials and qualifications, but a professional look as well. Resumes need to look good to attract the attention of prospective employers and human resources personnel. Even if you have the best credentials in the world, potential employers will spend less time reading your resume if it doesn’t look good.
Building a good-looking resume is a very important skill in business. Presentation and first impressions are key factors in getting employed. The resume you submit to the employer will give them a good idea of who you are, and how much you deserve the job. Here are some tips on how to build the perfect resume for your dream job.
Qualities of a Good Resume
Think of your resume as a sneak-peek the employer can have of you before he or she considers you for an interview. Your resume should attract the attention of the reader at the moment he or she glances at it. Here are some qualities of an excellent resume:
Short and concise. Nobody wants to read a 10-page resume if you’re applying for an entry-level job. A company may go through dozens, if not hundreds, of resumes at any given working day. Two pages that outline your professional experience, skills, and objectives are all you need to sell yourself to the company of your choice.
Attractive, yet understated. It’s important to make your resume stand out and attract the attention of whoever is reading it. Aesthetic elements like colors, gradients, lines, and font work can make your resume stand out from the rest of those bland-looking resumes. An understated, professional look is much more preferred than gaudy-looking resumes with bad color schemes and cartoon-like fonts. Simplicity is key to making your resume attractive.
Active and straightforward. Your resume is your selling point when you look for a job. Human resources personnel do not have the time to go through long paragraphs that describe who you are. It’s best to use bullet points and straightforward statements that immediately attract the attention of the company manager.
Making a Resume From Scratch
Many resumes have already encountered almost every type of resume template available from standard office suites, desktop publishing software, and common ones available on the Internet. If you’re serious about the job prospect, you need to go the extra mile and make a resume from scratch.
Take the time to build your resume days or even a week in advance before you submit it to a prospective employer. You can take inspiration from a resume template, but you can add your own preferences by changing the fonts and font sizes, color schemes, or making your own images and accents to highlight parts of your resume. It takes a lot of time and effort to create your own resume, but it shows your prospective employer that you’re committed to taking the job.
The Building Blocks of an Attractive Resume
For a resume to look attractive, it has to have certain elements that make it look good and professional. Here are four of the most important things you should keep in mind when you build your own resume:
Headings. It’s important to use headings so that your resume will be easy to read. You can use different fonts, font sizes, effects, or even background colors and images to distinguish the heading from the block of text.
Color schemes. Make your color schemes look striking enough to be noticed, but understated so that they won’t irritate the reader. Hues of green, blue, or even black and white can work very well to make your resume stand out from the rest.
Shapes, lines, and accents. Lines and shapes can also help make your resume attractive. Remember that accents should draw attention into the content of your resume, not draw attention away from it.
Fonts. Professional-looking serif and sans-serif fonts are great if you want to draw attention to your details and credentials. Don’t use comic-book fonts, cartoon fonts, or fonts with distracting special effects and designs.
Arrangement. A good resume is easy to read. Ease of reading has a lot to do with how you arrange the text in the body of the resume. Bullet points, text boxes, and short sentences help make your resume easier to read.
Ready-Made Resumes
If you’re not confident about your page design skills, or if you’re in a hurry to make a resume, then you may need to use a ready-made template or the resume wizard in an office suite or desktop publishing program like Microsoft Word or iWork Pages. When you do use a template or a wizard, make sure to change the color scheme and font work to make it your own unique resume.
With millions of resumes going through reception desks every day, getting a job is a very competitive activity. The right resume design and structure can get you your dream job in a snap.