Adding Visual Appeal to Your Resume

If your resume has seen better days, it's time for an overhaul. For best results, your resume must be easy to read, brief, compelling and visually appealing. Consider these tips to revamp the look of your resume and ensure it attracts attention.

Use Bold Type

A resume is a sea of text, so to help break up the monotony, use boldface type for headings and subheadings, such as company names, job titles or key points of accomplishments. The reader's eye is naturally attracted to bold type, and it helps a hiring manager skim your resume quickly and still get a good feel for your strengths and achievements.

Quantify Your Accomplishments

When numbers are included in a resume, they naturally jump out at readers, allowing them to take in more information at a faster pace. Be specific when listing your previous achievements. For example, if you were the top seller in your department, don't say "Top seller in department." Instead, say "Sold 120 percent above quota for three consecutive months; top seller in a department of 45." The details and specifics make your accomplishments more impressive and real.

Optimize With Keywords

So many employers use applicant tracking software to scan resumes that it would be unwise not to pepper your resume with keywords. Read over the job description thoroughly, as well as the company's mission statement, history and other key information to get a good idea of what they're looking for in a candidate. Let your resume mirror that by using keywords relevant to both their needs and your experience. This means that during any job search, you should create a new resume for each position you apply for. The employer's applicant tracking software is much more likely to select your resume, as it appears more compatible with the kind of candidate the company desires.

Add Testimonials

Testimonials are valuable to businesses, so why not use them to your advantage? Positive referrals from a former boss, co-worker or client help support your candidate profile and serve as third-party vouchers for your experience and abilities. They are also refreshing to see among the hard bullet points of the rest of your resume.

Give it the Right Length

A resume that is too short makes you appear inexperienced, while a lengthy one is daunting to read and may cause the hiring manager to lose interest. Try to condense everything down to one page. If your resume is not long enough for a page, add additional information to fill the page, such as volunteer experience, professional organizations and relevant hobbies.

A stellar resume brings visual elements together in a way that makes it easy for the reader to get the most important details with just a quick skim. Remake your resume with these tips, and enlist the help of a friend or mentor to help you with the final edits and proofreading. Your resume presents you to hiring managers, so taking the time to make it spectacular is crucial to job search success.

Photo courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net