Resume Layouts and Designs

Professional Resume Layouts & Designs

Editor's Note

Resume layout is about designing your resume in order to maximize its visual impact. It is important to spend time on having a proper resume layout for the following reasons:

The person reviewing your resume will spend less than a minute. You want to make sure that within that short span of time, your resume catches his or her attention.
Your resume will contain a lot of information. You want to make sure that that information is properly organized in order to highlight your strengths.
The appearance of your resume will reflect on your professionalism and your candidacy in general.
A resume with a good layout is another way for you to set yourself apart from other applicants.

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Following are simple things you can do to improve the layout of your resume:

Use titles and headings effectively.
Organize the information on your resume to draw attention to your strengths.
Choose the right font and the right font size.
Structure your resume so that it is easy to read (the recruiter has to be able to skim through your resume in 30 seconds or less and know what your candidacy is about).
Be consistent in terms of how you present the information on your resume.
Once you are done drafting your resume, ask yourself if your resume is visually appealing.
Remember that an effective resume layout is necessary to highlight your qualifications, as opposed to being an end in itself (in that regard, you don't need a "nice" resume layout as much as you need an "effective" resume layout).
Pay attention to details.
Print your resume using a laser printer.

The above simple recommendations can dramatically improve the layout of your resume. You can also look at our extensive list of professionally written resume examples to see what layout or layouts you like the most. Inspire yourself from the pros!

Again, the old adage "it's not what you say, but how you say it" also applies in resume writing.

Following are some professional resume designs and layouts that you can inspire yourself from: