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The effective use of whitespace in the header and left-hand column easily draws attention to your qualifications.
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How To Make A Creative Resume Template
As you write your resume, you have so many design elements you can combine to give it a creative touch. Here are a few of the possibilities to consider:
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Color: A creative resume will have more color than traditional or modern ones. You can use bold, bright colors and exciting color combinations if appropriate. Just make sure your document is still easy to read.
If the company you’re applying to has a corporate color scheme, such as their logo, website, or promotional materials, you can reflect that in your design. This acts as a subtle signal that you will fit into their work environment well.
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Graphics: Consider adding symbols or graphics that are related to your industry. No matter what graphic you choose, make sure that it’s high-quality and fits with the content of your resume.
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Professional Photo: If you add a profile picture, make sure your photo is professional. A silly, heavily edited, or unconventional photo is a distraction and doesn’t provide potential employers with helpful information about you.
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Unique Layout: If you are committed to showcasing your creativity, then break up the monotony of a traditional resume format. You still need to include all the necessary information about your qualifications, but you can arrange it in a new way that still gets the point across.
Making a creative resume can be a great tool for those in industries such as arts and entertainment. However, you should know that there are inherent risks involved. Some creative resumes do not scan well with applicant tracking systems (ATS), so your resume could be rejected simply due to a technical error.
Additionally, creative resumes are not always welcomed, even in creative fields. Sometimes a hiring manager or recruiter just wants to easily read your resume to determine whether they want to learn more about you.
If a job is interested in your creative abilities, they may ask for supplemental material instead, such as a portfolio of work, a personal website, or a video resume.
Make sure to research the job carefully ahead of time to determine if a creative resume is the right choice or not. Send your resume directly to a person of contact, such as a recruiter, hiring manager, or HR representative, to avoid ATS issues. When in doubt, reach out to the potential and ask what they would prefer.
Creative Resume Template: Pros And Cons
Creative Resume Pros
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Highlight key sections: Creative resumes highlight your resume’s most critical parts with design elements such as bold lettering and shades of color.
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Show your creativity: Especially for graphic designers, web designers, and artists, a creative resume is a great way to demonstrate your skills.
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Stand out: If your design is unique and engaging, your resume will have a visual impact that can leave a lasting impression.
Creative Resume Cons
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Not-ATS friendly: An ATS usually has trouble with creative design elements such as graphics and tables. Therefore, it won’t scan your resume properly and it may be removed from consideration.
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Personal taste: In the end, the reader of your resume may not like what they see. To be safe, you can also use a resume from our collection of professional templates.
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Creative Resumes FAQ
Updated: August 14, 2023
Yes, creative resume templates can help you craft a resume that showcases your qualifications in an engaging manner. A unique design could help you stand out against a sea of simple or basic resumes.
To make a creative resume you will want a well-designed and well-formatted document with bold design elements helps direct the reader's attention to your most important capabilities.
To achieve a professional, appealing and organized design, consider the following tips:
Clear margins: Use 1-inch margins on your resume. The whitespace provides a visual break between blocks of text, which helps the reader effectively absorb information.
Readable fonts: A familiar font like Times New Roman, Arial or Helvetica in size 10-12 makes your resume easy to read.
Color: There’s nothing wrong with submitting a resume in black and white, but if you’re applying for a highly desired job, it’s easy for your document to get lost in the sea of similar formats. Adding pops of color can help your resume stand out. We advise that you use the entry-level rule of color theory and only use three to five colors on your document. Remember, the white of your margins and black of your text count as colors.
Borders: Your margins and paragraph breaks can indicate when and where a resume section starts and ends, but you can add additional clues in the form of borders. These small markers can send visual cues to the hiring manager, making it a lot easier to scan your resume.
Choosing a creative resume should depend on the job. You are more likely to use a creative resume if you work in a creative industry like tech, advertising, marketing, customer service, child care or education.
Make sure to research the job opening. Is there a use of humor in the job posting? Does the company website emphasize employee activities and company culture? Is their social media peppered with playful posts? If so, you can safely assume these employers might appreciate a creative resume
If you’re not sure, we highly recommend that you use one of our alternate resumes:
Basic: These designs are anything but basic. These elegant templates build on a standard layout and add subtle design elements that can help you out.
Contemporary: Our bold take on a standard resume, these templates lean into a multi-column approach and use section borders to make your skills, experience and education stand out.
- Simple: These clean and simple templates help you elevate your resume by combining thoughtful font choices, crisp margins, and special header treatment on each of your resume sections.
There are other innovative ways to showcase your creativity through a job application. These include:
Online resumes: Online resumes allow you to play with the format and talk about your achievements through alternative styles like photographs, illustrations, graphs or timelines.
Video resume: Although unconventional, video resumes are an audio/visual representation of your qualifications. They can be an excellent tool for cinematographers, video editors or other creators to demonstrate their skills.
Infographic resumes: The infographic resume uses a visual format to provide information about you and your experience. Check out our infographic resume guide and templates to make the job easy for you.
Portfolio resumes: Portfolio resumes help you demonstrate your work experience with examples of your work. We have a library of free portfolio templates and additional writing tips.
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