How to write an original resume for a job. Creative Resume: Features and Examples Creative Resume

Representatives of creative professions when compiling resumes most often deviate from the classic standards of black and white design. They turn the most unusual ideas into reality, for example, a resume in the form of a cover of a glossy magazine or compiled on artificially aged sheets. However, their informative part is no different from the established office requirements.

Advantages and disadvantages

A creative resume allows the applicant to stand out against the general background of the classical-style presentation questionnaires. And this is not surprising. Going through a lot of the same type of resumes, a recruiter with great pleasure will stop at a colorful document and carefully read the text.

But even unusual resumes have a number of advantages and disadvantages that every representative of creative professions should know.

First of all, it is necessary to consider the disadvantages of a creative approach:

  • not every leader understands the essence of non-standard resumes;
  • preparing a presentation document may take more than one day;
  • the internal anxiety of the applicant about the opinion of the management of the company in which he wants to get a job can negatively affect the creative design;
  • creative resume format is not suitable for all specialties.

But the list of advantages of a non-standard approach has much more points.

  • Screening of companies. Managers and recruiters can express their criticism of the submitted resume. Different views and competing opinions indicate the impossibility of working well with the boss and the company's team as a whole.
  • Creative approach helps compensate for the minimum work experience of the applicant.
  • Creative format resume gives the applicant a chance to make a stunning career. In a short period of time, a non-standard document can be in the database of all creative companies in the city. This means that job offers will begin to come to the applicant themselves.
  • Creativity executives prioritize candidates with out-of-the-box thinking.
  • An applicant with a creative resume will certainly be invited for an interview. At the same time, communication will not take place on a sluggish note, but with a smile and laughter.
  • The team of the company quite often sees resumes received by the company. And such an unusual approach to compiling a presentation document will allow you to quickly fit into the team.

Creating a creative resume is actually very difficult. Creative thinking and knowledge of graphic programs is only the first step to creating a presentation masterpiece. To attract the attention of the employer, you need to come up with an unusual concept for this document.

Recruitment specialists shared information on which creative resume models are more to the taste of company executives.

  • infographics. A fairly common method of self-presentation among creative professions. The text of this document must contain all the points of the classic summary. As for the background, here the applicant just needs to be creative.
  • Envelope. Nowadays, recruiters and business leaders receive resumes from applicants by e-mail. But this is not always successful - such letters are most often deleted. A “live letter” delivered by courier or handed over to the personnel department with your own hand will help to avoid such situations. At the same time, the resume itself should have a non-standard design.
  • "In contact with". Today, social networks are an integral part of human life. This can not be used when compiling a creative resume. Presentation questionnaires made in the design of a personal page look very interesting and unusual. In addition, this method allows the applicant to reveal his talents, thereby demonstrating them to potential management.
  • Cover. A great option for a creative resume in the form of a cover of a glossy magazine. Here it will be possible to place printed information and insert several portfolio items.
  • Pyrography. An unusual method, used extremely rarely. We are talking about a wooden board, on top of which the necessary textual information is burned. In fact, there are many options for designing a creative resume. The main thing is to connect the creative potential and find an acceptable document model for a quick job.

It is worth noting that when applying for a foreign company, it is appropriate to make a resume in two languages, for example, in Russian and English.

How to write an original resume?

In simple terms, the last place of work is indicated first, and at the very end information about the first work experience is affixed.

Achievements

In the resume of each applicant there is a section "work experience", which indicates the name of the enterprise, position and a list of functional duties. But employers, in general, are not interested in this information. The future leader must see what the potential employee could achieve. To do this, it is appropriate to supplement the resume structure with an achievement section.

For creative resumes, it is better to slightly adjust the “work experience” section, supplementing it with achievements. Further, it is proposed to consider, using several examples, what an unusual bunch looks like, in contrast to banal phrases.

Main responsibilities:

  • making cold calls;
  • creating presentations;
  • conclusion of contracts.

On the one hand, the text seems clear, easily accessible. However, the future leader does not see what the applicant could achieve. Therefore, some clarity is needed:

  • signed 10 contracts with international companies worth $1 million each;
  • for 3 months increased the client base by 128 units, 46 of them became regular partners;
  • over the past 22 months exceeded the plan for the sale of products.

You don’t even have to ask what text the potential boss will “bite” on.

Skills

A mandatory condition for any creative resume is to supplement its structure with a “skills and technologies” section. For example, if an applicant is looking for a job as a copywriter, it is extremely important for him to indicate the presence of public speaking skills. This is not about karaoke, but about teaching lectures or training new employees.

When filling out the section on technological knowledge, it is not necessary to describe a detailed acquaintance with the program. It is enough to indicate "experienced user". In general, it is better to make a marking list and show which programs the applicant knows well and which not so much.

For example, people of creative professions should be skilled in working with graphic programs, Adobe Illustrator, AutoCAD, Corel Draw, Photoshop, InDesign.

background information

In each strict resume model, familiar words are indicated, applicants only change their places. For example, sociability, stress resistance, responsibility. These words can even be called clichés that potential leaders do not even pay attention to.

Information of a secondary nature in a resume of a creative format should be presented with an unusual twist, and for this you need to connect your imagination, talk about principles, beliefs. You can briefly mention a favorite book, blog, or other interest. On the one hand, this may seem ridiculous, but it is this information that reveals the inner world of the applicant, tells about his personal qualities. In addition, if at least one interest coincides with the passion of a potential leader, an imperceptible emotional attachment will arise between him and the applicant. Thanks to this nuance, the chance of the owner of a creative resume to get the desired position increases significantly.

If the applicant has no desire to share personal information, you can use the usual clichés, just present them in more detail:

  • characteristic "stress resistance" can be replaced with the phrase "able to withstand high emotional stress and remain calm in emergency situations";
  • "a responsibility" it is preferable to colorize with the phrase “I have the ability to quickly analyze the situation and make independent decisions, bearing full responsibility for them”;
  • the phrase "I can quickly find a common language with strangers" easily replaces the "sociability" pattern;
  • “I independently deal with new information, after which I easily apply it in practice” It's about "quick learning".

A resume is, as you know, the calling card of every worker. And access to the dream company without a properly drawn up and presented business card will, alas, be closed. Fortunately, today this is absolutely no problem, because the Internet is full of tips for writing a quality resume for any range of careers - from financial analysts to graphic designers.

In this article, we have collected over 30 free resume templates for you in DOC, PSD, AI, and PDF formats. Here there are "business cards" for every taste and profession!

Resume For Designers

Creative, modern and attractive design. File Format - AI

An original resume in PSD format for graphic designers. Available in 3 colors, what's more, it also comes with a cover letter.

Bright orange graphs in the form of rings show the skills, experience, as well as other attributes of the employee. Very suitable for people of creative professions.

An unobtrusive yet impressive resume design that was created specifically for graphic designers. What else is needed for happiness? Available in AI format

And again, a gift for designers - another work in PSD format. What else is needed for happiness?

This piece by Australian designer Maisie Everett is a printable flyer or poster version of your resume. It weighs, however, a bit too much - as much as 43 MB, but it's worth it.

Graphic designer resume plus cover letter. Available in three colors

If you want to make a summary in the form of graphs and statistics, then this template is for you, in this document your data will be presented in a presentable and original form. AI format.

Developed in two colors - yellow and red from the familiar designer John Doe. PSD format, reminiscent of a poster, which makes it look spectacular when printed.

Universal resumes for everyone

A great resume that catches the eye. Suitable for engineers, contractors, and designers.

A PSD document where you can add your bio, skills, and more. All layers are separated accordingly, for maximum convenience. Suitable for everyone.

Nice looking design in PSD format. Due to its color composition, it is more suitable for the female half of workers.

Beautifully designed with geometric elements. Suitable for everyone. doc format.

Ideal to emphasize professional skills, due to the original design of graphics showing these very skills. Similar to the previous document, available in Docx format.

The design of this resume catches the eye with its originality, as it contains icons. Come in and see for yourself.

Ideal for photographers, as this is not just a resume, but also a portfolio. How much time is saved!

  • love to engage in wrestling, martial arts, boxing, participate in races;
  • are fond of computer games;
  • play cards for money;
  • travel around the world;
  • Do you prefer extreme sports?
  • you are a representative of subcultures (goth, punk, rocker, fan of metal music);
  • make tattoos, decorate the body with metal;
  • are fond of non-traditional religions, wear appropriate clothing and like to promote.

The above interests often influence the appearance of the applicant and his demeanor. Extreme sports fans are at risk of losing their jobs due to the fact that their passion is associated with injuries. Employers are afraid of travelers because they spend more time on their trips than on their duties.

Pay attention to how your e-mail address looks like: it is desirable that it does not contain familiar words, for example, . It would be better if only your first and/or last name were the basis of the e-mail address - simply and professionally. If the candidate claims to own a computer, this is a mistake. Please send your CV only from the address that appears in the text of your CV. A resume should be visually pleasing.

Usually, the resume should not exceed one A4 page, unless, of course, there are special skills that need to be described in detail. So, the resume should be short. Usually, a large amount of information in the resume causes the employer more irritation than pleasure. Remember that your employer's resume is usually not the only one. And the more interesting the vacancy, the more chances you will have for success if you can convey the main essence of your resume in the minimum time that the employer will spend reading your resume. Additional information that you consider also important can always be provided at the interview.

creative person resume template

The situation with frequent job changes can be resolved if the reasons for leaving are given with a really respectful wording. So, if all five times the companies ceased their activities (provided that the candidate did not hold the post of CEO), then it is obvious that the point is not in the personality of the candidate and he deserves a stable job.

First- in terms of the formation of a database that meets the format of the agency's orders. For example, if a company specializes in the selection of top and middle management, and in the column "education" the applicant does not have a higher education, then the evaluation of the resume at this stage is completed. It will be carefully placed in the appropriate folder, but the likelihood that it will be returned to is minimal.

10 original resume examples

Anastasia Smolina, a graphic designer and artist from Moscow, came up with an equally original approach to creating a resume. Anastasia embodied the original resume directly from herself by posting the information on the “resume dress”. Not so little information fit, especially since Anastasia also used the free space on her body.

One of the ways to attract the attention of the employer and, accordingly, encourage him to invite you for an interview is to make an original, unusual, memorable resume. And, although there are conflicting opinions about the original resumes, let's look at a small selection of interesting “works” of Russian-speaking applicants and pay tribute to the creativity of their authors.

How to write a good resume for a job? Sample resume template and example to help you create a resume

Indicating your positive aspects in the resume, it is important to be very careful. After all, the same personal qualities of a person in one situation can be a virtue, in another - a disadvantage. A lot also depends on the position you are applying for. For example, the best business qualities manager and the best business qualities of an accountant can be very different from each other. How to determine what important professional qualities of a person should be indicated in a resume? The answer to this question can be found in the text of the job posting itself. HR managers sometimes list the required professional qualities of the employee they want to see in this position.

If you are looking for an answer to the question of what personal qualities to include in a resume, then your resume is most likely nearing completion. Information about personal qualities in the summary is located at the very end. After it, you can only indicate your interests and hobbies. Analyzing the positive personal qualities in the resume, the employer is trying to answer the question of how the indicated best professional qualities of the applicant correspond to the duties in the vacant position. In addition, the personal characteristics of a person largely determine his attitude to work in general.

Strengths and weaknesses of a person in a resume: examples of phrases for an interview

  • Be sure to indicate on your resume that you always set goals for yourself and achieve them, that is, you are a goal-oriented person. At the same time, be persistent and always follow a pre-planned plan.
  • It is also worth pointing out that in the event of unforeseen circumstances, you can find a way out of this situation - you have a creative mind.
  • Another important component of any successful applicant is self confidence. This will characterize you as a confident person who is not afraid to take a step forward. You are not inclined to panic due to unforeseen circumstances, you are calm and confident in your abilities.
  • It is also very important the ability to communicate with people. Let it be customers, colleagues, subordinates, suppliers. You just need to be able to find a “common language” with them, accept their point of view and correctly present your opinion.
  • Another positive character trait that must be indicated in the employment questionnaire is a responsibility. No matter what position you apply for, you must always be responsible for your actions. Otherwise, you will become a burden on the company, which will eventually lead to you being fired.

An independent, purposeful and self-critical person always recognizes that there are many weaknesses in his character. And there is nothing wrong with that. We are all humans. But every purposeful person can turn his shortcomings into virtues through painstaking work on himself.

Personal qualities of a person for a resume

  • activity;
  • accuracy;
  • analytic skills;
  • ambition;
  • fast learner;
  • attentiveness;
  • politeness;
  • high efficiency;
  • flexibility;
  • discipline;
  • conscientiousness;
  • friendliness;
  • performance;
  • initiative;
  • creativity;
  • sociability;
  • loyalty;
  • persistence;
  • reliability;
  • resourcefulness;
  • focus on results;
  • non-conflict;
  • optimism;
  • organizational skills;
  • oratory;
  • result orientation;
  • organization;
  • responsiveness;
  • a responsibility;
  • decency;
  • presentable appearance;
  • enterprise;
  • adherence to principles;
  • punctuality;
  • innovation;
  • self-control;
  • independence;
  • self-criticism;
  • scrupulousness;
  • Justice;
  • ability to make quick and independent decisions;
  • stress resistance;
  • the desire to improve the professional level, self-improvement, professional growth, development;
  • a creative approach to finding ways to accomplish the tasks;
  • diligence;
  • self confidence;
  • skill to work in team;
  • ability to adapt to change;
  • the ability to convince;
  • good diction;
  • purposefulness;
  • sense of humor;
  • honesty;
  • energy.

Indicating the positive and negative qualities of a person in a resume, you need to be extremely careful. Much depends on the specific position and corporate culture of the company - in one situation, some quality will be perceived as positive, and in another, as negative.

Various examples of describing hobbies and hobbies in a resume with explanations

Such hobbies can safely be considered universal. They are equally suitable for both men and women, and they do not depend on the age of the applicant. If you decide to indicate examples of your interests in your resume more specifically, then be prepared for the fact that an attentive recruiter may ask you to tell us about your hobby in more detail. Therefore, you should not write, for example, "composing your own computer programs." If you are poorly versed in this matter, then you may not be up to par.

In your free time, you can do whatever you want. However, the employer must be sure that you will not scare off clients with your non-standard appearance, will not start to engage in religious propaganda and will not disappear for several days, because you have another stage of the competition. Therefore, it is better not to indicate hobbies in the resume, examples of which are given above.

How to write an autobiography (example of writing)? Sample

Monitoring the attendance of the project page and a comparative analysis of sales for 4 months of the current year with the same period last year allowed us to draw certain conclusions. For example, the implementation of the project increased the popularity of the newspaper among the population and increased its sales by 10%. In addition, thanks to the project, the newspaper took 1st place in the annual contest “The Best Printed Edition of 2014” and was awarded an honorary prize.”

“I, Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich, was born on January 01, 1990 in the city of Vladivostok, Primorsky Krai. In 1997 he entered the secondary school №1. In 2007 he graduated from school with a gold medal. In the same year, he began studying at the Far Eastern Humanitarian University with a degree in Journalism. In 2012 he graduated with honors. From August 2012 to this day I have been working as a journalist in the newspaper Vestnik Vladivostok.

A detailed example of writing an autobiography according to the model

Since 2012, she continued her studies at the Rostov face at the State University in the direction of "mathematics". During her studies, she repeatedly participated in mathematical Olympiads and competitions, since 2013 she has been constantly collaborating with the Russian Mathematical Association.

An autobiography is a brief, free-form description of the main periods of a person's life, which, in his opinion, are the most important both for himself and for society. It is always compiled by the candidate independently, taking into account the characteristics and requirements of the bodies for which it is compiled.

30 Jul 2018 1922

Despite the fact that we live in a world where job searches are based on friends and Facebook status, a resume is still considered a must for a serious job seeker. The problem is that standard resumes written in Word are insanely similar to one another. Job seekers try to stand out with an unusual cover letter, unaware that the average employer spends only six seconds looking at each candidate's letter. In such a situation, the text is not the best way to attract the attention of the employer.

The creators of Vizualize.me decided to do away with boring lists of past jobs and descriptions of the qualities of candidates. To do this, they created a website that allows you to turn a resume into a bright, entertaining and unique infographic. All you need to create it is a LinkedIn profile, which automatically transforms into an infographic according to the selected template. In addition to LinkedIn, information can be imported from Twitter, Facebook, and even Foursquare. The service has several competitors that work on the same principle, for example, Vizify.com, Re.vu, Kinzaa.com. They differ from each other mainly in design styles. At Kinzaa it is rather restrained and clumsy, at Re.vu it is strict and graphic, at Vizify.com it is made in the form of detailed visual instructions.

The creators of Pathbrite primarily focused on people who are looking for a job for the first time in their lives, that is, students. Usually a resume implies a listing of places of previous work - it is not clear what to do for those who have no experience at all, but have the necessary qualifications. The service allows you to talk about your skills in the form of a constantly updated collage.

The personal page on Pathbrite is a visual history of the acquisition of knowledge and experience, fixing the personal achievements of the applicant. On it, you can publish certificates of completion of online courses, photos, videos, essays, examples of student work - everything that allows you to get an idea of ​​​​the features and creative potential of the applicant. Of course, the possibilities of the service go beyond the student audience. A page on Pathbrite can be a great addition to a standard resume, replacing the boring enumeration of a candidate's personal qualities: initiative, teamwork, ambition.

ResumUP - development of St. Petersburg startups. The service, firstly, has the functionality of Vizualize.me, that is, it makes it possible to create a summary in the form of infographics. But unlike Vizualize.me, it allows you to save the resulting resume in PDF format, and secondly, it makes it possible to build a career growth schedule. To do this, you need to tell the service what position the applicant occupies now and what he aspires to in the future. The service itself fills in the necessary intermediate stages and offers currently available vacancies. Jobs are added either directly from employers or through an aggregator-parser from the Careerjet website. Third, ResumUP helps you find people who might be helpful along the way. This is due to the analysis of the user's contacts on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Zerply is a social network for professionals designed to replace the obsolete LinkedIn. On the site of the service, you can create a page with an online resume and find other people working in your field. You can import a profile base from Facebook and LinkedIn or fill it out yourself. Then you need to choose the design template you like, and Zerply will do the rest of the work for you.

The easy-to-use, nice-looking service also allows you to post examples of your work, a feature apparently borrowed from Behance. Thanks to this, the social network should appeal to representatives of creative professions - designers and developers. The creators of Zerply are especially proud of the ability of the service to find useful work contacts for users using a convenient tag search. Zerply also cooperates with many well-known companies, which it helps to find employees among network users.

Online resumes, infographics, and new professional social media are nice additions to the classic resume format, which is still a must-have on hand just in case. Good examples for such resumes can be found in the Google Template Library. But it is even more convenient to use a service that itself embeds information about education, jobs and skills into the selected template.

For example, the CVmaker website has six free classic templates. Everything here is strict, traditional and minimalistic. And most importantly, there is an adaptation for the Russian language. The summary is available for saving in three formats: PDF, HTML and txt. If you like the very principle of the service, but the templates themselves do not, you can experiment with its analogues -

Listen to a man who has looked at over 100,000 resumes in his entire career and really knows how to make a resume more attractive. By the way, here's my LinkedIn profile, see for yourself: mpritula .

But let's agree right away: no deception in the resume. Only honest information. How to make your resume really cool without cheating - about this in my life hacks.

Why is it almost perfect? Here are 10 tips I could give on this resume:

  • Take a photo on a plain background (white or gray).
  • Remove one phone. Why should a recruiter think about where to call?
  • Change email to personal, not some company.
  • Remove marital status.
  • Combine competencies and key experience. Shorten sentences to 7-10 words and arrange in the form of a list.
  • Remove recommendations.
  • Correct the mistake in the word "company" in the last place of work.
  • Reduce responsibilities to 10 lines.
  • Make the link short (bit.ly, goo.gl).
  • Reduce the total length of the resume to two pages.

Making your resume more valuable

Now let's talk about what makes a resume more expensive. I advise people on how to improve their resumes. Representatives of various positions send me their resumes: from ordinary salespeople to company directors. Everyone makes the same mistakes. There was not a single resume to which I could not write 10 tips on how to improve it. Below I have collected the most frequent advice that I gave on the submitted resumes.

10. Combine many jobs into one

It is considered normal if a person has been working in a company for 2-3 years. If he changes jobs more often, he may be called a job hopper. Recruiters do not like such people, since about 70% of customers refuse to consider such candidates. And this is quite natural.

A person after a year of work is just beginning to benefit the company.

Of course, everyone has the right to make a mistake, and a good resume can have a couple of places where the candidate worked for 1–1.5 years. But if the whole resume looks like this, then its value is very low.

However, it often happens that a person has changed several job positions in one company or moved from company to company within a holding structure. Or he was engaged in project work, in which he changed several employers.

In such cases (and wherever possible) I recommend that this be done as one place of work, with one name and common dates of work. And inside this block, you can unobtrusively show the change of positions, but so that visually, during a cursory examination of the resume, there is no feeling of frequent job changes.

11. Stick to the ideal length of your resume

I believe that the ideal length of a resume is strictly two pages. One is too little, only for students, and three is already too much.

If everything is clear with one page - such a resume looks like a resume of a novice specialist - then with three, four, and so on pages, everything is not so obvious. And the answer is simple: the recruiter will look at only two pages in 80% of cases. And it will read only what you have indicated on these two pages. Therefore, whatever you write on the third and subsequent pages, it will be left without attention. And if you write valuable information about yourself there, the recruiter will not know about it.

12. Share your accomplishments

If you remember only one sentence from my article, let it be about achievements. This immediately adds 50% value to your resume. The recruiter is simply not able to interview everyone who sent a resume. Therefore, the one who indicated his achievements and was able thereby to interest the recruiter will always win.

Achievements are your measurable ones, which are expressed in numbers, terms or significant qualitative changes in the company. They must be specific, measurable, impressive and relevant to the position.

Achievement example:

  • Increased TV sales by 30% in three months (store director).
  • Brought a new product to the market in four months, which helped to earn 800 thousand dollars in six months (marketing director).
  • Negotiated with suppliers and increased the delay in payments by 30 days, saving the company on loans - 100 thousand dollars a month (buyer).
  • Reduced staff turnover from 25% to 18% through work with employee engagement (HR).

13. Tell me about your personal qualities

Now more and more attention is paid to the personal qualities of the employee in the selection of candidates. If you analyze what exactly you will be assessed at the interview, then most likely it will be like this:

  • 40% - professional knowledge;
  • 40% - personal qualities;
  • 20% - motivation (the desire to do this particular job in this particular company).

What are personal qualities? These are personal qualities of a person that contribute to the effective performance of their duties.

This includes: energy, openness, ability to work in a team, initiative, proactivity and so on. And these are no longer empty words, at the interview more and more often you will hear such a question: “Tell me about the situation in which you had to take responsibility, and how you coped with it.” This is called competency assessment.

Therefore, your personal qualities, especially if they correspond to those required in the vacancy, are extremely important. And if earlier it was enough just to list them, now this is no longer enough. Now you need to confirm their presence, so I recommend writing them like this (examples, of course, you give your own, a mandatory rule: they must all be real and from the past):

  • Initiative: developed and implemented a strategy for exiting the department from the crisis when the head left.
  • Energized: My 2014 sales volume was 30% above the departmental average.
  • Stress resistance: I successfully negotiated with a client who refused seven managers, and concluded an agreement with him.
  • Leadership: conducted five management trainings and raised 10 managers from line employees.

Here it is important to write not many qualities, but qualities with examples. That is, examples here are more important than quantity.

14. Throw functional responsibilities out of the job description in the trash!

The functional responsibilities that are indicated in the resume are usually the most banal and boring thing. In 30% of cases they are copied from their job description, in 50% of cases they are copied from other people's resumes or job descriptions, and only 20% write them really well on their own.

I always recommend writing exactly duties, not areas of responsibility, and describe them in the form of actions that you performed. This is about the same as with achievements, but numbers are not required here, responsibilities may not be so impressive, and, of course, these are not one-time actions.

Before writing them, I recommend reading a few vacancies to get an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat is generally worth writing about. Next, write out the responsibilities in order of their importance: in the first place the most significant (strategy development, launching new products on the market), and in the last - the least (preparation of reports).

15. Sell your job title and company

Job titles and a list of companies are, in fact, exactly what a recruiter looks for in a resume in the first place. It's like a customer skimming the shelf in a store looking for familiar brands (Nescafe, Procter & Gamble, Gallina Blanka, Mars, Snickers, Tide). It is on these lines that the recruiter forms the initial cost of the resume in his head and only then begins to look for details.


  • We write only the common name. If you work for Nails and Nuts LLC, which is an official dealer of Coca-Cola, then simply write Coca-Cola. Believe me, the legal name of the company is of no interest to anyone.
  • In brackets we write the number of employees, for example: IBM (3,000 employees).
  • Under the name of the company, we write briefly in 7–10 words what it does. For example: in the top 5 in consumer lending.
  • If the company is little known, but works with well-known brands, be sure to indicate this. For example: Autosupersuperleasing (leasing partner of BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Honda). The name of well-known brands next to an unknown company will greatly enhance the perception of the company.

16. Remove formulaic phrases from the "Goal" section

Immediately after your contact details on your resume, there is a section called “Purpose”. Usually in this section they write formulaic phrases like "Maximize your potential ...". Here you need to list the list of positions that you are interested in.

17. Always check your spelling

Typically, about 5% of all resumes I view contain errors:

  • elementary grammatical errors (there was no spell check);
  • mistakes in writing foreign words (only Russian spelling check is configured);
  • errors in punctuation marks: a space before a comma, a comma between words without spaces;
  • in lists, there are different punctuation marks at the end of the sentence (ideally, they should not be; the period is placed after the last item of the list).

18. Save your resume in DOCX format and nothing else

  • Not PDF - many recruiters make their edits or notes (salary expectations, their impressions of the candidate, information that was obtained during the interview) in the resume before sending it to the client, they will not be able to make them in PDF.
  • Not ODT - may not open correctly on some computers.
  • Not DOC - a sign that the resume comes from the past (pre-Office 2007).
  • Not RTF - usually weighs more than alternatives.

19. Use a Recruiter Friendly Resume File Name

The title of the resume file should contain at least the last name and preferably the position. So it will be more convenient for the recruiter to look for a resume on his disk, send it, and so on. A little concern for the recruiter will definitely be noted. Again, in the eyes of the recruiter, this makes the resume a bit more expensive.

20. Show your value in a cover letter

There are different opinions about cover letters. I always say this: a good cover letter can add value to a resume 20% of the time if it's written right. But it is not always necessary.

If you decide to write it, then here's a simple structure for you:

And if you show an example, then it could look like this:

Mistakes on your resume

Along with the secrets to increasing the cost of a resume, there are things that make a resume significantly cheaper. Let's talk about some of them.

Now many job search sites allow you to download a resume created there. At the same time, they always add their logo and various fields for entering information that is not needed for a resume at all in such a resume. For example, gender. These resumes look like real cheap, so I advise you never to do this.

21. Remove obscure abbreviations

When you work for a company for a long time, some of the abbreviations adopted in it already seem so familiar that you write them in your resume. But they are unfamiliar to the recruiter, so very important information is lost. Try to avoid abbreviations wherever possible.

22. Paraphrase formulaic phrases

Very often you want to give in to the temptation and cram into your resume formulaic phrases that can be easily found in any resume or job description. Avoid them, as they represent empty space for the recruiter.

Rephrase, for example:

  • Result orientation = in my work I always think about the result.
  • Customer focus = the client always comes first for me = I put the interests of the client above my own.
  • Sociability = I can easily negotiate with any clients/colleagues = I freely maintain a conversation with clients.

23. Create a normal box

What separates a professional from a child? A professional calls his mailbox by name and surname, and a child - by children's words, nicknames from games and forums, date of birth.

Well, it is absolutely unacceptable to indicate your workbox. The recruiter in this case will interpret this nuance as follows: “I am fired from my job, and therefore I can not be afraid and send my resume from my work email.”

24. Remove marital status, it is only of interest to visitors to dating sites

There is only one case where indicating marital status can play a positive role: if a young girl is looking for work and wants to show that she will not go on maternity leave immediately after employment. In this case, you can indicate the presence of children.

The options “civil marriage”, “divorced” immediately reduce the cost of a resume, as additional questions arise.

The option “I have children” is written by very narrow-minded people, since all normal people are “”. :)

25. Explain the work experience gap

You can’t just take and show a gap in work. It is necessary to write why it arose. The option “I will explain at the interview” is not suitable, since the recruiter, seeing the gap, will think the worst that could happen.

If there was a decree between two jobs, then we write. By the way, if the decree was without leaving for another job, there is no point in writing it at all. I don’t even recommend highlighting this in an interview.

26. Remove the last job end date

This is the one resume trick that can be forgiven. It is believed that a person draws up a resume before the dismissal and after the dismissal simply does not update this date. In any case, the specified date of dismissal will play against you.

27. Don't write reasons for quitting

There is no reason why you need to write down the reasons for dismissal. Whatever you write there, the recruiter will always have a suspicion about your desire to explain the reason for the dismissal. Or maybe you're lying?

28. Don't explain the details of your resume

It is not allowed to write explanations, comments, footnotes, etc. in the summary. Only dates, facts, achievements.

The worst thing that can be is the "Recommendations" section and the phrase "I will provide on request." What's the point of this section? The list of references is redundant. No one will call them before the interview with you. And after the interview, you can already provide this list if there is a request.

30. Remove tables and large indents

The tables in the summary were adopted in the early 2000s. Then the whole civilized world abandoned them. Don't act like a dinosaur.

Also, don't make the bulk of the summary very large indents on the left side of the document.

31. Leave the first jobs for your grandmother

For simplicity, I'll just describe how it will be OK:

  • Last place of work: 7-10 lines of duties and 5-7 lines of achievements.
  • Past place of work: 5-7 lines of duties and 3-5 lines of achievements.
  • Place of work before last: 3-5 lines of duties and 3 lines of achievements.
  • Other places of work: 3 lines + 3 lines of achievements, if they are included in the interval of the last 10 years of work.
  • Everything that was before 10 years ago: only the names of companies and positions.
  • If in your career there were jobs that were not relevant to the current position, feel free to delete them. For example, now you are a marketing director, and started 15 years ago as an engineer at a factory or a salesman in the market.

32. Remove the vocational school

If you studied at a vocational school, college, technical school, and then graduated from a university, show only the university.

33. Do not show resumes to HR specialists you know if you are not sure of their professionalism

We have a lot of HR professionals who consider themselves gurus and give advice left and right. Find out how many vacancies they filled themselves, how many people interview on average per day. What books have you read about recruiting? How many of them were foreign.

If you get answers like this:

  • more than 500 vacancies;
  • 5-10 per day;
  • more than five books (at least!);
  • Lou Adler, Bill Radin, Tony Byrne;

…then feel free to trust the advice!

I'm doing a little research, so in the comments to this post, write which of all the tips described turned out to be the most valuable for you. This will help me understand your needs and write another cool article on how to sell yourself for more during an interview.

P.S. Friends, thank you all for your comments. I wrote a book with a colleague where I shared even more tips. It is available via the link.

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