resume templates
To use one or not to? Let me warn you, I am passionate about the answer.
DO. NOT. USE. A. TEMPLATE.
Ok, now that we have that out of the way, I’ll explain why.
They are hard to edit.
Templates are just that, a template. They have rigid rules that you have to adhere to. What if your resume is just slightly too long, pushing you onto 2 pages. If you could just edit this one little spot, you’d be on one page. Most likely, your template won’t let you do that, making you delete content instead of deleting or shrinking a space.
They don’t stand out.
The whole point of a resume is to stand out in an electronic pile of 100 other resumes. You, John and Jane Doe all use the same template *with some pre-loaded key words* so now you, John, and Jane all blur together as one. (Don’t take this as permission to do WILD things with your resume; keep it professional but authentic).
They are hard to edit.
Did I already say that? Too many times I have been working with a client who originally used a template builder. When we go to add in some personal flair, we can’t. So then I end up remaking the whole thing.
You don’t get creative enough.
A template puts you in a nice little box but you can’t stray from that box. So you are often limited to only those sections already existing on the resume. That also puts your creativity in a little box so you aren’t thinking beyond that and what relevant experience to include. You are applying to a non-profit and have extensive volunteering experience, would you think to include that if your template didn’t specifically have a section for it? Its stops you from adding sections that aren’t included in the template. Things like skills, certifications, professional summary, etc. OR, it forces you to include sections that you don’t have enough to add to and it wastes space.
Templates are specifically geared towards typical business, they are often not transferable to other fields.
If you are a creative, let’s say a content copy writer, and you use a template, your words are going to be limited. Your space to showcase YOU and your creative ability becomes very limited. If you are a teacher and you have professional ed classes that are relevant, you aren’t going to find a place on a template to include those.
And finally, they are hard to edit.
See 1 & 3 above.
Sure, writing a resume with a template might save you time upfront, but it regularly causes headache and work being redone in the future. Scroll through the templates to get some ideas, but make your own version the old fashioned way by using the space bar, tab key, and resizing white space.
Save your future self, or your future Career Coach, and don’t use a template. Hire a resume writer or a career coach with no resume and have them create it for you if you are intimidated. But make sure the career coach you are hiring doesn’t use a template…
