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Resume Styles Guide and Free Templates for 2023
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Hloom’s Resume Builder templates offer a wide range of styles that fit all professions. These template styles are clean yet eye-catching, perfect if you want to stand out while remaining professional.
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Medical Receptionist
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Elementary Teacher
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Administrative Assistant
How to Choose a Resume Style?
Choosing a resume style can seem pretty easy at first; after all, you just pick the one you like and move on. However, picking the resume style that will best suit your job requires a bit of thought.
You need to consider the job title, job industry, and company culture. These elements will help you establish parameters for your appropriate resume.
- Describe your job industry: Do you work in a field full of creative professionals? Is your industry all about innovation? Is respectability important for you and your peers? Make a list of your industry’s characteristics. Once you review it, you should have a better idea of the characteristics your resume should have. For example, if your industry is known for following protocol, being serious and respectable, your resume style should reflect those same qualities.
- Consider your job title: Look for resume styles that show your employer you will fit perfectly into your new job. A senior account executive at an ad agency might opt for a resume style that shows creativity as well as the seriousness of a higher-up role.
- Analyze the company’s culture: Are you applying for an up-and-coming startup? Is the company an established, formal corporation? What’s their branding like: full of colors and bold design or muted and elegant? If you want to show you’re the right match for the company, make sure your resume style resonates with the corporate branding.
You need to take all of the aforementioned questions into consideration when choosing your resume style. You might be applying for a more traditional role in the legal department of a laid-back, creative agency. How do you decide which resume style is the right one for you? Base your decision on your research of the company’s values and what’s most important for you to convey.
Resume Formats
Resume styles define the look and feel of your resume. In contrast, a resume format organizes the content of your resume to better make your information stand out. Since their purposes are not conflicting, you can have any of the resume formats with any resume style.
Chronological resume format
A chronological resume puts the focus on your work experience, listing it in reverse-chronological order. This resume format is ideal for candidates with a long and consistent work history.
Functional resume format
The functional resume highlights your skills while downplaying your work history. If you have little to no experience, you would benefit from this resume format.
Combination resume format
Combination resumes put the spotlight on both your work history and skills, so if you’re a candidate with an excellent skill set and some work experience, consider this resume format.
Conventional Resume Styles
These resume styles are the most commonly used because of their no-fuss design and straightforward layouts.
Simple Resumes
With clean, minimalist designs, simple resumes are an ideal choice for most fields. They tend to have sans-serif fonts, great organization and balanced white space.
Basic resumes
Basic doesn’t have to mean boring. These black and white basic templates strike the perfect balance between text and white space by employing the right paragraph spacing, margins and classic fonts.
Professional resumes
This style is ideal for experienced candidates and senior or executive roles. Bold headings and an impactful layout characterize these professional resumes.
One-page resumes
The one-page resume is the standard choice for most job applicants. A well-organized layout will seamlessly fit in all your information on one page.
Modern Resume Styles
With their cutting-edge designs, modern-style templates will make your resume stand out from the application pile.
Contemporary resumes
Ideal for up-to-date professionals, contemporary styles offer advanced formatting and creative layouts.
Modern resumes
Eye-catching yet professional, modern resume styles offer distinct color combinations and streamlined designs.
Visual Resume Styles
Visual resume styles are made for creators like videographers, graphic designers, photographers, and more. These templates allow you to show your creativity and samples of your work.
Creative resumes
Creative templates are characterized by unique layouts and bold designs features like bright colors, photos and illustrations.
Portfolio resumes
Portfolio resumes are a great way to incorporate samples of your work, whether you’re a photographer, graphic designer, writer or teacher. You can get creative with your resume’s layout by including images of your work alongside your resume sections.
Infographic resumes
An infographic resume style uses visuals to give a prospective employer important information about you. Graphs, charts and other data visualization methods showcase your work history and skills in an impactful way.
FAQ
What is the best style of resume for 2023?
Since the resume style you choose will depend on your job industry and your personal taste, there’s no single resume style that’s going to fit everyone this year. Granted, the big shift in the job market after the pandemic made the job application process more competitive. To prepare for the competition, be strategic at showcasing your strengths. Focus on the templates and styles that make you stand out rather than following the crowd.
What is a narrative style resume?
Narrative resumes can be identified by their long paragraphs and storytelling style. Instead of having separate resume sections, a narrative resume looks like a page-long essay. This resume style is similar to a cover letter, but it retains all the elements of a traditional resume. Narrative resumes do have the work history, skills and education, but they're expressed in a first or third-person narration.
What is a federal-style resume?
A federal-style resume is used when someone wants to apply for a job in the federal government. Federal resumes follow strict guidelines established by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The standard length of a federal resume is four to six pages long, but can go up to 10 depending on the candidate and the position. Federal resumes should be written in the chronological format, and require specifications such as your GS rate, citizenship, and veteran’s preference.
Which format do most employers prefer for resumes?
The chronological resume format is the one employers have come to expect when going through resumes. They tend to prefer it because it’s been commonly used for years, it puts a focus on the previous roles you’ve held and are easily read by applicant tracking systems.
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