ASK AMANDA: WHAT’S BETTER – A GRAPHIC RESUME OR A SIMPLE DESIGN?

发表日期：2017-10-23   访问量：1338

Each week, TopResume’s career advice expert, Amanda Augustine, answers user questions on Quora like the one below. We’ll be republishing those answers here. A certified professional career coach (CPCC) and resume writer (CPRW), Amanda has been helping professionals improve their careers for over 10 years. Have a question for Amanda? Submit it here.

Q: Should resumes be graphically interesting or simple and clean?

To be perfectly honest, I’ve never been a fan of resumes that are packed with graphics and other design elements. There are a couple reasons why I prefer a simple, clean resume design versus a graphic resume design.

First, the applicant tracking system (ATS) software that employers use to scan, parse, and rank your resume information often has difficulty reading graphic resumes, which means your resume is more likely to get tossed to the side before the hiring manager ever sees it.

Second, recruiters are accustomed to looking for certain pieces of information in specific places on a resume. On average, they only spend six seconds reviewing your resume at all. While your resume design may catch their eye, it might also cause recruiters to skip over your application if they can’t quickly find the information they’re looking for.

Instead, save the creativity for other parts of your personal branding campaign. If you’re in a creative field, showcase your skills with an online portfolio or blog, and by adding multimedia links to your LinkedIn profile to illustrate your work.

However, keep your resume’s format a bit more cut and dry. Take a look at this video I did where Business Insider had me review resumes on the fly. This will give you an idea of how a highly-graphic resume can ultimately hurt your candidacy, rather than help it.

If your heart is still set on using a graphic design resume, here’s a good list of graphic resume dos and don’ts. Bottom line: Make sure your resume focuses more on content and less on pretty images.

Click on the following link for more resume advice.