Try Quotes in your Resume

I'm often asked what is the "best resume format" to use? I'm afraid to say there is no such thing. There are few solid rules to writing a resume--it is important that you find a style that reflects you. The following recommendation is likely to be for those that are little bit bolder or creative when presenting themselves to employers.

It seems that one of the most under-appreciated additions to a resume is a quote from a previous boss or co-worker. When a hiring manager is short staffed and needs to hire in order to make a deadline, it is likely that he or she is looking for someone that can produce results and do the work effectively from the start. A good quote can really drive that point home even if it is at a subconscious level.

There is no better way to illustrate this than with some sample resumes. Consider the following fictitious example of a college graduate resume (click the icon to see the full image):


Rather than leave you with a pretty picture, let's go over a few formatting points of how the above resume was constructed. Microsoft Word was used with Palatino Linotype as the font for most of the text and Arial for the job descriptions and quotes. A custom color was used (Red: 164, Green: 162, Blue: 176) for the quote text. A lot of the alignment was done using invisible tables:


Finally, converting a document from Word to PDF is nearly always more visually appealing whether it will be viewed electronically or in print. If you don't have Adobe Acrobat which allows you to print to PDF, Fast PDF provides an excellent online service. You can also download and use pdf 995 free of charge. Also, if you use Linux (and Word 2000 under Wine) like me, you can just print to postscript (*.ps) and then use the ps2pdf script that comes with most distributions.

I hope to write a followup post titled Free Resume Examples in the coming weeks where you'll be able to download example of resumes written by people that have been recently hired by top companies.