How a Professional Resume Template can Highlight your Skills
Sure, you could open a blank page in Microsoft Word and start formatting from scratch. Set your own margins, indents, bullet points, fonts, borders, bold, underlines, and special features to make your resume look organized and professional. But these are time-consuming tasks and quite frankly, many people are not good at it. A resume is a self-advertisement that, when done properly, shows how your skills, experience, and achievements match the requirements of the job you want. Let’s make it count.
A professional resume template has its own way of influencing the reader and making personal statements more interesting. The resume stands out and is more interesting to read because of the professional and modern layout. A professional resume template is one of the smartest tools you could use for job searching. A great resume template will make you look professional in the eyes of the employer, even before they read a single word.
Of course, knowing how to pick a great resume template is key. Picking a great resume template can be a bit of a challenge because one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to resume templates. There are three basic types of resume templates, depending upon your level of experience: entry level, professional, and exectuive. Entry level resume templates should be used for recent graduates or 2 years of experience, and only consist of one page. Professional resume templates are best for individuals with 3 – 10 years of experience and can contain multiple pages (usually two, max). And finally, executive resume templates are usually considered for professionals with 10+ years of experience.
Another important aspect to consider while choosing a template is the general format (or flow). The chronological resume template is the most traditional. This lists your work experience in a chronological order, making it easy for the reader to quickly understand your experience. If you had a recent patch of unemployment, the functional resume template (also called a skills-based resume template) may be a better option, as it doesn’t show that you have been unemployed right off the bat.
With increased competition in every market, tailoring your resume to a certain industry can be extremely helpful. Tailoring it even further, right down to a job role, can be the push that your credentials need to land on the top of the pile. A great way to avoid problems is to use a good professional resume template. With the resume formatting all done in the Word document, you don’t have to think about those details. One more benefit of a good resume template is It serves as a checklist for what you should have in your resume. With all the sections formatted right into the template, you can decide section by section if you want that info in your resume or not. If it doesn’t apply to you, then just delete it. The first thing that a possible employer will see on your resume is the text. For that reason, it is very important that you make the right first impression. A professional resume template will already have the preferred size and layout ready.
Another advantage of a professional resume template is that it looks amazing and impresses easily. If your resume is easy to read, it’s more apt to get read. If you’re tempted to put your name and contact info in the header of your resume, don’t do it. Text in the header will be grey when your document is opened in Normal View, which is how most employers will see it on first review. Think about how your resume will be displayed when the employer sees and reads it. Another thing is that, you don’t want the employer or recruiter to have to bump up the size of text on his screen or have to print it out or put on his glasses so he can figure out what you’ve written. If he has to jump through even a small hoop to be able to read your text, he may not do it. A good professional resume template will get you through all of these problems very easily, and even avoid them in the first place.
