63 Modern Resume Templates: Writing Guide and Tips

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- Infographic Resume Template
- Contemporary Resume Template
- Modern Resume Template
- ATS Resume Template
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- CV Template
- Biodata Resume Template
- Pages Resume Template
- Writer Resume Template
- Student Resume Template
- High School Student Resume Template
- Internship Resume Template
- Entry Level Resume Template
- Massage Therapist Resume Template
- Medical Assistant Resume Template
- Cashier Resume Template
- BabySitter Resume Template
- Customer Service Template
- Attorney Resume Template
- Customer Service Representative Resume Template
- Teacher Resume Template
- Engineering Resume Template
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- Federal Resume Template
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Resume Help
Modern Resume Templates
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Professional Resume Template
This elegant template follows simple design and font elements to format your resume sections. This template is a perfect application choice if you’re applying to open opportunities at 100+ companies or careers in finance, law, or education. -
Knowledge Resume Template
This template elevates a standard resume layout with subtle borders that can help hiring managers easily skim and identify important sections of your resume. The customizable options make this perfect for applications to smaller companies, startups, and marketing agencies. -
Accentuate Resume Template
This modern template uses color blocking, ample white space, and elevated fonts to create a fresh approach to resume writing. This template is suited to tech startups, sales, marketing, and engineering job opportunities.
24 Free Chronological Resume Templates
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Blue Side
Light-blue sidebar and dark-blue titles with thin section lines provide a well-structured design. Great example for entertainment, health care or financial job seekers. -
Vibrant
Make all your great strengths pop with this professional resume template set in blue fonts, backgrounds and borderlines. A splash of red highlights the dates. Creative, entertainment and industrial jobs benefit from this design. -
Streamlined
Fading blue edge lines and backgrounds highlight each section down the template. One-column format with plus-sign bullets for job descriptions. Perfect for technical, engineering, programming and mechanical maintenance job candidates. -
Personal Brand
Oversized initial crest with forest-green background. One-column format with green coloring for section borders and key titles. Personal branding template for marketing, public relations, sales or accounting. -
Black and Orange
Deep black tones, subtle oranges and icons showcase your attributes in this template for a financial, business or sales executive. -
Professional Orange
Not a color that you would expect to see on a resume, but it works. Very clean, professional layout with only a few color shapes to create a fresh, contemporary look. -
Marketed
Open, two-page format with dark and light-blue shading for section headers. Traditional bulleted lists and three-column format for key strengths area. Imparts a corporate feel. -
Grindstone
Steel-gray background for header with maroon and fading saffron colors give a pop to this resume template. Full-color profile picture and traditional bulleted list and paragraph descriptions. Great resume for construction managers, contractors or industrial professionals. -
Rosy Outlook
Shades of red-rose color used for fonts and backgrounds shape this example. The two-column Work Experience section offers lots of room for detailed job descriptions. -
Hire Me
Original use of shapes, lines and color creates a unique design that will stand out from the rest without being over-the-top. -
No Fuss – Duo
Simple and elegant layout with a dash of complementary color, this resume gets straight down to business. -
VIP
Shaded-white main section set on light-colored, diagonal-lined page background. Olive-green shading for section titles completes this sharp, polished look. -
Call Out
The off-center design of this resume captures attention immediately. The use of rich green color around the name focuses a reader’s eyes to the top left and gets it moving around the page. Great template for designers, copywriters and other creatives. -
Schema
Diagram your career path in this resume template with dashed lines flowing throughout the page, punctuated by blue-boxed headers. Perfect template for operations and project managers, engineers and IT programmers. -
Corporate Lines
Subtle background, lines and waves add a lot of texture to this otherwise simple design. The use of bright color causes the section divisions to pop. -
All Business
Executive, marketing, financial and sales professionals take note. Gray tones and white fonts with bold titles and a profile photo give this template a corporate feel. -
Bold Typography
Having no images, this resume relies on the power of typography and your words. Make sure you choose the right ones to make the most impact. Text size and styles play an important part in creating a powerful impression here. -
Column Mix
Nice one- and three-column mix with a well-organized contemporary look. Paragraph headers serve as captions for three-column sections with blue-shaded titles. Full-page grid lines define the space with lots of room for your information. -
Overture
Fine arts feel with this resume template. Light green and gray colors and circular profile photo add an artistic touch. Section headers bordered with top and bottom grid lines. Teachers, directors and assistants template. -
Colorbricks
Thick, colored sidebars for each section in this resume template add pop to the traditional resume layout. It’s creative without overstatement. -
Great Experience
Jump right into your experience and education. Shadowed section titles offset bold fonts for organization and job titles. Complementary turquoise footer adds design zip. -
Block Color
Classic goes modern with block color and different shapes. The ribbon forms in this resume also give the impression of awards and high standards. -
Tied Together
Compact rectangular style. Blue shades used for fonts and divider lines. Bulleted lists highlight key areas and strengths. Excellent template for service industry applicants and recent graduates. -
Page One
Banner footer with full-color profile photo, qualifications section and light-blue shading. Three-column design with bold headers and lines offers lots of space. Ideal for journalists, marketers and communications specialists.
6 Free Functional Resume Templates
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Glimmer
Blue shades for backgrounds and section headers with a profile picture set on a light-gray backdrop. Star design element showcases the list of your key skills. Computer, engineering and scientific feel with this resume template. -
Designer’s Touch
Light-blue font for titles and arrow bullet points complement gray backgrounds and lines. Thin margins give the page lots of room for your information. -
Framed
Not an obvious frame, but the colored banner at the top of the page and the color text help focus attention on your name and opening statement. -
Block Step
This attention-grabbing resume makes clever use of color and shapes to help the reader navigate the document. Three steps of block color lead down to the main resume where block color clearly divides content sections. -
Color Contrast
Contrasting colors help to separate and organize your information and headings. Experiment with different colors, but remember that many colors will not print out exactly the same as the onscreen version. -
Casual Blue
If safe and conservative white is not for you, this resume design will definitely help you stand out. Colored background is not something you can pull off on your home printer, so only choose this option if you’re uploading/emailing your resume or plan on using a professional printing service.
30 Free Combination Resume Templates
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Steely
Very formal-looking resume template with a corporate feel. Steel-gray, blue shading and profile photo make it all business. Legal assistants, financial planners and hospital administrators — have a look. -
Career Pitch
Blue backgrounds offset bold, white section headers, and orange titles with plus-sign bullet points catch the eye. Perfect for engineers, IT, data and communications specialists. -
Organized
Organized tabular layout with vertical section headers with all-caps, white titles and blue backgrounds. Light-gray shading for description areas and blue circle meters to promote your key skills. -
Creative Formal
Two columns separated by white and gray backgrounds impart a creative yet formal feel. Icon images and blue fonts complete the resume template. -
Show and Tell
Wonderful template for realtors, insurance agents, interior designers or home contractors. Full-color profile photo with blue background. Strength graphs spotlight your expertise. -
Skillful
Showcase your key skills with olive-green and gray block graphs that complement the gray backgrounds and olive-green section divider lines. Excellent template when applying for a next-level position. -
Lists of Expertises
Deep, forest greens and light blues offer a formal feel in this resume template. Lots of bold sections with bulleted lists to include all of your qualifications and expertise. -
Formative Traditional
Blue and gray header shading with maroon titles adds a modern creative touch to this traditional example. Skills section includes graphs to rank your strengths and thin margins to include all of your information. -
One Two Three
Open black and red circles with inset numbers for bullet points, sequential section headings and light-gray backgrounds make this resume template pop. Round profile photo maintains the open look. -
Score-Card
A centered resume format that places visual emphasis on key skills by means of a 10-point rating scale. -
Advertise
Put a color photo of yourself here to complement the blues and whites. Great template for realtors, insurance and advertising sales agents, and contractors. -
Springing
Light purples and greens create a spring feel here. Use a photo of yourself and the bar meters to showcase your many qualifications. Great for marketing, sales and hospitality professionals. -
Fades of Green
White and bold font types set on green-fading backgrounds catch the eye. Large summary of qualifications area and many conventional sections in this template. -
Bold Contrast
Strong use of contrasting colors makes this resume stand out. A simple layout, using block color to highlight your strengths. Make the most of positive feedback from customers or bosses by quoting what they’ve said about you. -
Foundation
Orange and gray titles add flair to classic black-and-white color scheme with a mix of one, two and three columns with thin divider lines in this resume template. Enlarged, italicized objective footer gives creative appeal. Great for clerical, IT, sales or engineering usage. -
Spirited Professional
Large footer section with orange color scheme, bold white fonts and a full-color profile photo. Bold headers and maroon titles complete the overall creative feel. Ideal template for public relations, graphic designer or sales. -
Positive Showing
Orange plus signs and headers with thin border line define each section. Gray and black squares with an inner dot showcase personal strengths. Plenty of space for those with a lot of experience and accomplishments. -
Refined
Designed for professionals seeking to highlight their key strengths, this template has a refined and professional format, with just a touch of light blue, gray shading and dotted lines that add a contemporary vibe. This two-column design provides plenty of room for mid-career professionals to highlight their skills, work history, education and objectives. -
Prelude
Gray-shaded squares with introductory information set next to work experience descriptions provide room for more detail and a designer’s touch. Light yellows used for titles and shading. -
Present Yourself
Dashed yellow-green page border with section borderlines in a dashed light gray. Circle graphics set in olive green and dark blue to rank your key expertise. Perfect resume template for computer professionals. -
Check Box
A colored background highlights the section headings, and the font colors for the titles complement the backgrounds. Use the checkboxes and lines to bullet-list all that you have to offer. -
Front and Center
Boxed and shaded profile area provides lots of room to present yourself. Gray vertical and horizontal lines draw focus to the section headings, and the centered descriptions and keywords keep the reader scanning the page. -
What People Say
Jump straight into what people say about you. Show off your best achievements through the words of others. -
Functional Showcase
Multi-column layout with thin, section-divider lines. Work history section and a bar graph to rate your skills. Excellent format for administrative, service industry and labor professionals. -
Logos
Entrepreneurs, travel, sales and branding professionals utilize this sample to feature company logos with a shaded, bulleted key skills section. -
Testimonials
Summarize your skill set succinctly at the start of your resume and have the people that matter endorse you. -
Open
Open-ended block sections with thin and thick deep-brown-shaded grid outlines. Arrows used for bulleted lists, and italic fonts for margin headings and titles. -
Blocks
Thick, bold outlines define each block section. Limited use of shading adds a sleek design touch. Traditional information with a creative layout. -
Salmon
Lots of color looks distinctive, and this color scheme will make your resume stand out. The checkmark is a very positive image to use instead of a standard bullet point. -
Qualified
White fonts set on green and deep-gray background for headers. Combination of two and three columns for skills lists and qualifications. Teachers, retail employees and service job seekers stand out with this resume template.
Should You Use a Modern Resume Template?
Not all job seekers may benefit from the traditional resumes we suggested above. A modern resume may be a better design choice than a traditional format if you work in a creative industry, plan to change careers, or develop higher-than-average proficiencies in career-specific skills.
Modern Resume DIY Tips
Busy hiring managers and recruiters won’t spend much time with your resume before deciding whether or not to discard it, so the design is very important.
A modern resume should be easy to read and attractively designed. Here are some of the major design elements to consider in a modern professional resume.
Choose the right font
On modern resumes, fonts are important. You’ll want to avoid commonly used fonts like the ones we recommend that you avoid and choose a more interesting option, like Helvetica Neue or Georgia. We listed a few excellent font choices below, but these are just some of our favorite options. These are good starting fonts for your resume, but feel free to experiment with the various fonts offered by your word processor.
Do use these modern fonts:
- Georgia: Georgia is a particularly good choice as it was designed to be easily read on a screen. This is a simple serif font that relies on round letters and generous spacing to make it highly readable on paper and screens.
- Helvetica Neue: This minimal sans serif font is a reworking of the beloved Helvetica font. The letters have been redesigned to have a uniformed height and width, making it a bold, but safe, choice for modern job seekers.
- Garamond: This serif font was influenced by the handwritten fonts of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance and was designed to be timeless. It’s easy to read and looks like an elevated Times New Roman font.
- Verdana: This elegant sans serif font was specifically designed to be easy to read as a small print. It’s perfect for onscreen resumes, especially if your resume falls on the longer side and needs to fit into a one-page document.
Don’t use these dated fonts:
- Times New Roman: Historically, Times New Roman was the default choice for resumes. On a modern resume though, this old-fashioned font can be seen as outdated, even boring.
- Arial: Like it’s serif cousin above, Arial should be avoided on your modern template. It’s a fine sans serif choice for standard resumes, avoids decorative details in its design, and is screen-friendly. But it’s also an overused font and can make your resume look safe or generic.
- Calibri: Again, this is a fine font choice if you’re playing it safe. This sans serif font is appealing and screen-friendly, but it is the default font on many word processors, including Microsoft Word and Google Docs. Using this font may seem like a safe or automatic choice.
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Use simple and legible colors
Color is a good way to make your modern resume shine. Now that resumes are often sent to employers online, the expense of color printing is avoided.
- Use simple colors: Keep your color palette professional but minimal. A general rule of website design is to use three to five colors throughout your design, including black and white. You should follow that same design rule on your modern resume and cover letter.
- Use colors as accents: You might color only your section headers, or you could choose a template with a colored design from our options above.
- Use legible colors: Always use colors that are easy to see. Darker colors, like navy and burgundy, will look best for text, especially against a white background. Light colors, like yellow, are too difficult to read against standard white backgrounds, can strain the readers’ eye, and can look unprofessional.
Make your resume concise and skimmable
A hiring manager probably isn’t going to read your resume from top to bottom until after you’ve made it through the initial selection process. They often make those early decisions in a matter of seconds.
- Highlight key information: Help guide recruiters and hiring managers who are just skimming resumes. You can use bold fonts to highlight your major achievements or strategically use color in crucial sections to draw the eye there first.
- White space: One-inch margins and white space between your modern resume sections creates clear breaks between the content and allows for easy skimming, so don’t sacrifice this necessary space to stuff your resume with excess information.
- Use bullet points: You want to mark each new accomplishment or responsibility with bullet points. This adds extra emphasis to the information while allowing the hiring manager to easily skim and find these professional details.
- Use industry shorthand: If there’s a common acronym or abbreviation for a term in your industry, be sure to spell it out at least once in your resume before using the insider term, in case the person reading your resume is not familiar with the abbreviation.
Keep your resume to one page for each decade of work
It’s important that everything on your resume is essential. Two pages of relevant information is good; two pages of filler is not. The general rule is that you should have around one page on your resume for every ten years of work experience.
- One-page resume: One page resumes are great, but the strategic use of columns, skills rating graphs, and borders can make modern resumes longer than one page. If you’re using this layout, your resume will be one page if you have less than 10 years of experience.
- Two-page resume: This resume length is appropriate if you have a lot of work experience. Employers would rather read a multi-page professional resume than a one-page resume that’s crammed with information in a tiny font.
Add infographics to demonstrate skills and achievements
Some jobs, like medical assisting, require a specific skill set that should go in a Skills section. For a job that doesn’t require such specific knowledge, don’t have a Skills section, and list your achievements instead. Infographics such as rated skills or bar graphs can help you include specific numbers or metrics in a visually appealing way that is easy for hiring managers to scan and understand.
- Key or core qualifications: A modern resume relies so heavily on distinct sections and columns. This design choice can let you create an additional skills section that focuses on your core competencies, and grants you an additional opportunity to impress hiring managers.
- Rating skills: This style of resume template dedicates crucial space to your skills section by allowing you to rate the strength of your skills on an easily understood numerical scale. This allows you to communicate your familiarity with hard and technical skills for hiring managers through visual clues.
- Experience timelines: This design element can help hiring managers understand how your professional career has unfurled over the last few years.
Update your contact information with professional social media accounts and websites
If you have actively used work-appropriate social media accounts that can be leveraged for professional purposes, you should add hyperlinks to these relevant social media pages. Make sure to keep your social media accounts professional and polished.
- LinkedIn: If you have a detailed and thorough LinkedIn account, hyperlink it in your Contact Information section. If you’re applying for a job that will involve social media use, such as corporate online reputation management, include links to your other social media accounts, too, like Twitter and Instagram.
- Engagement metrics: A modern template is ideal for job seekers looking for work in social media marketing. The use of graphs and infographics allows you to highlight successful metrics such as user engagement and viral posts from either your personal or professional social media accounts.
If you have a personal website, published writing samples or an online portfolio, link that in your Contact Information section, as long as it’s relevant to your desired job.
- Resume website: As job searches and application processes are moved online, more job seekers are moving their resumes online. We still recommend that you write a tailored resume for each job application, but these pages are simple summaries of your entire professional experience. You can create a supplementary resume website that outlines all of your achievements and qualifications, not just the ones that best suit the needs of the open job. This gives curious hiring managers an additional chance to learn more about you and your skills before or after an interview.
- Online portfolio: An online resume summarizes and describes your skills and abilities; your portfolio demonstrates this information through tangible examples of your previous work. Photographers, copywriters, marketers, designers, architects or event organizers can benefit greatly from adding links to their online portfolio.
Prioritize your summary statement
Include a Professional Summary that states what you have to offer the employer as a candidate, instead of what you’re looking for. This is an especially good idea if you have a long work history.
Your professional summary should be a synopsis of your job history and can include your years of experience, job history highlights or major accomplishments, especially if the accomplishments are similar to the stated responsibilities of an open job position.
Pro tip: Resume Objectives (brief paragraphs that outline what you hope to gain from employment) are considered outdated in a modern resume. It can be assumed that an employer or recruiter already knows what your objective is since they have your resume in their hands.
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Demonstrate your achievements with evidence
Most job candidates only list their responsibilities and duties, which can fail to show how skilled they are in their work. Adding your achievements and successes demonstrate that you are highly skilled in these job-related tasks, rather than just trained.
Achievements don’t generally need their own separate section unless you have a lot of measurable achievements to list. You can work them into your Experience or Work History section. Tell recruiters about things you accomplished or skills you mastered at each past job. If you can include specifics or numbers, that’s even better.
For example, if you helped establish an office protocol that reduced wait time or launched a new social media campaign that increased knowledge or interests about a business, find those statistics and showcase them on your resume while explaining how your contributions led to those improvements.
Modern Resume Pros and Cons
All job seekers are uniquely qualified — some of you may benefit from using a modern resume template and some might severely damage their job search prospects. We’ll break down the pros and cons of using a modern resume layout. If the cons far outweigh the pros, you can also try our Resume Builder for step-by-step advice on how to build your own resume!
Pros
- Skimmable: The use of columns, colors and distinct borders around each section makes it very easy for hiring managers to quickly scan and find your professional information.
- Screen-friendly: Each of our modern templates was carefully designed for technology. The use of screen-friendly fonts makes these resumes easy to read on both a monitor or hard-copy format.
- Attractive design: Modern templates borrow a lot of design elements from traditional newspaper formats. Bold borders, complementary color schemes, and careful use of spacing help these designs stand out against basic resumes.
Cons
- Length: The use of columns, infographics and borders cuts both ways. Although these design elements make it easy to skim through your information, they also take up space. While some managers prefer longer resumes, this design is risky because it takes twice as much space to share the same information as a simple one-page resume.
- ATS-risky: Although job boards are making advancements with ATS (applicant tracking systems) programming, it’s still a finicky tool. These systems can only scan and parse information from recognizable chronological and combination resumes. The heavy use of columns and modern design elements can confuse these programs into misreading your resume and eliminating your application before a human eye can review your materials.
Improve Your Resume with a Modern Tool
If you appreciate the elegant designs of these templates but would like hand-on assistance with tailoring your resume information, restructuring the layout, and creating a matching cover letter, try using our new Resume Builder. This online tool features exclusive templates, fill-in-black suggested content related to your job search, and unlimited online storage with a subscription.
This simple layout features a traditional font and the clever use of section borders to help each section of your resume stand out.
This distinctive two-column resume template identifies your name and professional experience in a bold color and clean presentation.
A clever design that breaks each of your professional accomplishments into distinct sections while following a format that will pass applicant tracking systems.
The elegant initials, simple header and strategic use of bullet points in this template help keep your professional accomplishments well-organized.
The bold use of a colorblocked heading paired with an elegant resume layout helps your name and contact information stand out.
This structured design combines a two-column approach with bullet points to highlight your key accomplishments and professional history.
A traditional template uses a crisp combination of dark text and thin borders to radiate professionalism. Your name sits prominently above your professional history.
This template’s design features plenty of whitespace neatly divided by gray bars to make the information on your resume easy to read for employers.
This two-column resume conveys a very clear breakdown of its sections that allows a hiring manager to quickly scan your resume.
The subtle color accents in this template add visual pizzazz in a classy way, a great option for most traditional industries.
This resume’s modern design and bold use of color make it pop. Its uniqueness is well-suited to those seeking jobs in creative industries.
Everything about this template is assertive from the boxy layout to its all-caps heading text that gives the impression that you’re all about business.
The understated contact information at the top puts attention front and center on your professional summary, skills, work experience and education sections.
The subtle use of red alongside black gives this template a bold feel while still featuring plenty of white space to make it easy to read.
Modern Resume FAQ
What should a modern resume include?
A modern resume should follow a standard chronological or combination format. , but you can further elevate your hiring qualifications by adding these elements.
Modern Chronological Resume:
Modern Combination Resume:
Modern Functional Resume:
Is it unprofessional to use a modern template?
A modern template is professional when designed and written correctly. Our templates use creative color palettes and playful design elements, but the main goal of these templates is to leave a positive, professional impression on a potential employer. As long as you stick to facts and share quantifiable metrics alongside your employment history, you’ll have an employer-friendly and professional document.
Is a modern resume template better than a traditional one?
The modern template is designed to showcase strong skill sets and successful metrics. It’s perfect for highly skilled job seekers who may not have a lot of formal work experience. If you’d like to try a different design, we share some of our favorite and successful options below.
What is the best resume template for 2023?
Not all job seekers have the same experience or hiring strength — a resume template that benefits your friend may not be the best resume template for you. There are a variety of reasons why a modern template may not work for you: short work history, beginner-level comfort with your skills, lengthy gaps of time between jobs.
If you’d like to see additional options, we broke down our favorite resume templates into specific writing guides with the hopes of helping you find your next job.
1. Chronological resumes: This is the most commonly used resume format that is perfect for candidates with over 10 years of steady work experience, no work gaps, and trackable career growth.2. Functional resumes: The least common format, the functional resume shuns traceable work history in favor of acquired skills. This format dedicates multiple sections to elaborating on learned skills and techniques in order to highlight qualifications. It’s perfect for job seekers who are changing careers or have needed to take long breaks between employment positions.3. Combination resumes: This format is perfect for recent graduates, entry-level job seekers or career changers. The combination resume borrows strengths from both the chronological and functional resume to lend equal weight and importance to your learned skills and your formal work experience.4. ATS-friendly resumes: These are your best options if you’re only applying through online job boards. Most ATS can only read and parse your resume information from formulaic layouts — each of these designs carefully notes where to include your professional experience to increase your chances of an interview.5. Simple and clean resumes: Simple doesn’t always have to mean basic. If you’re uncomfortable with using colors and images to tell your professional story, you can still impress hiring managers by using one of these simple but elegant designs. They are designed to focus on your qualifications.Rate our Templates
Gabriela Barcenas
Gaby is Hloom’s resident writer, a certified professional resume writer (CPRW), and a baking enthusiast. She likes to defend the use of the functional resume to her friends in HR. She graduated from the University of San Francisco with a B.A. in English and Creative Writing and wrote about career growth, tech startups, education, fashion, travel and lifestyle culture throughout her career.
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