Resume Writing Templates
Resume templates are quick and convenient, but are they the best idea? Most HR managers think not.
Creative platforms like Canva and Etsy offer pretty templates for their users, but they can come at a cost in terms of job prospects:
They aren’t picked up by ATS. A lot of large companies and HR firms use a robot called Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to scan an applicant’s resume for keywords. Creative templates often have different structures, weird fonts and use too many graphics which often confuses the ATS, meaning your resume won’t be identified for jobs.
They might not match your industry. Creative templates are geared toward creative industries. Presenting a vibrant resume to a more technical field like accounting or mining may lead hiring managers to assume you are not the right fit for the industry.
Don’t provide enough room. A lot of creative resumes don’t provide enough room for experienced professionals to write about their career accomplishments.
They can confuse the hiring manager. Busy hiring managers don’t want to waste time trying to understand the format of your resume. Make life easier for the hiring manager by providing all your information in a structured template.
It can realign poorly on another system. The biggest downfall of creative templates is that they convert poorly once downloaded from the platform. Converting creative resume templates to a word document or your phone can misalign the resume’s format. Misaligned resumes can turn off some HR managers and make your resume feel ‘unfinished’.
It’s hard to go against the grain with a template. A lot of these templates are designed for 1-page resumes with sparse amounts of information. If you want to add an extra page or additional lines, you have to waste lots of time trying to get realign the template to add your extra information.
If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. The best resumes are often the ones that make life easier for HR managers. So, to get you started, here are three basic, user-friendly, resume templates for you that HR managers prefer, in Word Docx file format – free of charge.
