LaTeX resume templates exist if you wanna get extremely fancy with it. Otherwise, any text editing document that allows some basic level of formatting and headers will do the trick. If I get sent an extremely beautiful and well-formatted resume to read, it’s a “good attention to detail” footnote in my mind but ultimately the actual content is much more important.
Since we’re on the subject of resumes though, an open message to anyone who might be reading… Don’t have an LLM help you write your resume. It’s extremely obvious and makes your resume worse because it gets real generic and wordy with it. I’ve seen them, I’ve not been impressed by them, it makes me think this person may not actually be able to write coherently on their own.
And remember, a resume is a personal advertisement for you - make it punchy, and keep to bullet points highlighting impressive things you want a recruiter and hiring manager to know. Include buzzwords as pulled directly from the job posting to get through automated screening. Highlight projects you’ve done and what positive effect they had on the intended audience.
You mean I shouldn’t have a two page essay summarizing my entire life? /s
In all seriousness, its unfortunate how many people are mislead by school “career coaches” into making resumes and cover letters filled with fluff.
Here’s some things I remember;
A paragraph about yourself/goals - waste of space and save that for an interview/cover letter.
A photo of yourself - you don’t want to add unnecessary bias to the process. (Age, race, gender, sex, etc.)
your name should be top center, with contact info (email, phone) underneath (use a smaller font than name)
Address - not needed, you may want to include your town/city if being local is going to be relevant to the employer.
School classes - to be fair this was probably used in lieu of real jobs so kids could actually fill it out. It is not relevant unless the class is extremely relevant to what the job is and you don’t have other related experiences.
School GPA - no one cares. For secondary education, state the collage/uni name, your major and minor. Don’t include grad year as this can revel your age.
Don’t include every job, at a certain point you can leave your two years of retail/fast food behind.
A giant side boarder - huge waste of space
references - three. no more, no less. Don’t include on publicly posted resume, such as LinkedIn.
Family reference - no, unless it’s a family business and that’s all you have.
multiple pages - no. One page. Reasonable font size (12-14). Vary the font size based on information to help break up blobs if text, A header might be size 16 and bold, while the years worked might be 12, and body text at 14. Dont go less than 10 for anything, and avoid italics, those usually do more harm than good for making it easy to read.
be consistent!
job tile is more important than where you worked.
Fudging job titles a little bit is oky to match the general industry or be a better description. For example my summer job was working with my school’s IT dept. to do computers and protectors, my official title was “maintenance assistant” - I put “IT assistant” on my resume
Instead of
Bobs Auto Shop
Accountant, 2019-2022
copy paste the entire job description word for word until you fill the page.
Lead with
Accountant
Bobs Auto Shop, 2019-2022
Brief description
applicable buzz words related to the job you are applying too
Achievements, successes etc. An actual example of something to show you did something useful. This is something that can lead to a longer conversation at an interview. “I created a new process for handling bulk inventory purchasing.” or something, preferably relevant to new job.
LaTeX resume templates exist if you wanna get extremely fancy with it. Otherwise, any text editing document that allows some basic level of formatting and headers will do the trick. If I get sent an extremely beautiful and well-formatted resume to read, it’s a “good attention to detail” footnote in my mind but ultimately the actual content is much more important.
Since we’re on the subject of resumes though, an open message to anyone who might be reading… Don’t have an LLM help you write your resume. It’s extremely obvious and makes your resume worse because it gets real generic and wordy with it. I’ve seen them, I’ve not been impressed by them, it makes me think this person may not actually be able to write coherently on their own.
And remember, a resume is a personal advertisement for you - make it punchy, and keep to bullet points highlighting impressive things you want a recruiter and hiring manager to know. Include buzzwords as pulled directly from the job posting to get through automated screening. Highlight projects you’ve done and what positive effect they had on the intended audience.
You mean I shouldn’t have a two page essay summarizing my entire life? /s
In all seriousness, its unfortunate how many people are mislead by school “career coaches” into making resumes and cover letters filled with fluff.
Here’s some things I remember;
Instead of
Bobs Auto Shop
Accountant, 2019-2022
Lead with
Accountant
Bobs Auto Shop, 2019-2022
Saving this comment, I found this incredibly helpful, thank you for sharing!