Why I Need A Resume: Fill & Download for Free

Just as the best product is the one that gets the job done, the best resumes are those that communicate your skills and accomplishments in a clear, effective way.Graphical resumes are, in particular, terrible. Unless you can be one of the lucky few to get a bunch of media attention for a nifty format, you will hurt yourself far more than you'll help yourself if you use a graphical resume. Graphical resumes are typically difficult to read and they sacrifice content -- your hard-earned accomplishments -- in favor of pretty pictures and useless graphics. See: Why Your Awesome, Creative Resume Isn’t Working.A good resume format has the following attributes:Multiple Columns: Multiple columns make it easier for someone to quickly skim your company titles, positions, schools, and other key facts. It also stores this information in a very compact way, allowing more space to list things you've done. (Note: do not use one of those templates where the entire left part of the resume is a column for the categories. They waste a lot of space.)Short and Sweet: People only spend about 5 - 30 seconds reading your resume, and this isn't enough to read even a full page of content. When your make your resume too long, it just dilutes the quality of each thing on your resume. Focus on just the highlights. One page is often all you need, but if you have 10+ years of experience and multiple roles, you can justify at most two pages. That's it though.The Right Sections: No objectives (they're useless). Summary sections can be okay, but they're usually not (after all, if your resume is short and concise, then you don't really need a summary section).Use Tables: Okay, this is really nit picky, but it's a personal pet peeve of mine. The way to make multiple columns in Microsoft Word is with tables (with invisible columns), not by hitting 'space' dozens of times.Bulleted -- No Long Text Blobs: Again, you only have about 15 seconds to make an impression. Large blocks of text will not be read. Keep your bullets to 1 - 2 lines (and, ideally, about half or more of those bullets should be one line).Appropriate Use of Fonts and Formatting: You don't want to go overboard with fonts and formatting. However, a little bit of formatting (bold, italics, etc) can be useful to organize your resume.So with that said, here are two formats that work perfectly well:This resume can be downloaded here: http://www.careercup.com/resume.This resume can be downloaded here: http://www.thegoogleresume.com/resources.htmlThe first resume is a format I designed myself, whereas the second one is a format required by Wharton's MBA program.

No. Never. Not because you will be discriminated against but because you could be (based upon the economic status of your neighborhood). Don’t risk it.First name & surnameGeographic region (Chicagoland, San Francisco Bay Area, New York / Newark)Phone numberEmail address†Your resume isn’t a legal document containing an exhaustive history of everything you have done. It’s an appetizer and highlights your relevant and best qualities that the company will value.† Ugh. And while we’re on this subject of email addresses. Listen kids, for fuck’s sake, create a new Outlook or Gmail or Ymail account strictly for professional communication that excludes nonsense like: “[email protected]” or “[email protected]” or “[email protected]” or “[email protected]” or “[email protected]” or “[email protected]”. NEVER include a year or a number that looks like a year because someone might use it to think they know your age. Don’t use fluffy words or political statements. find some version that reflects your name and maybe a number if needed (fake examples):[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected][email protected] shouldn’t need to be said, but apparently I need to explain this to adults like every fucking week. Email addresses are free. Get one that is utterly neutral and looks kind of like the name on your resume.See: Dan Holliday's answer to What are the best tips for writing a resume?

In the US, UK, Australia and Canada, it’s usually a bad idea. In the US, you’re committing resume suicide outside of acting and modeling. Never EVER EVER include a picture on your resume in the US. If you do, be prepared for a recruiter to see it and run from it as fast as possible. Did I mention that you should never do this? Good. Don’t put your picture on your resume. Ever.See:What are the best tips for writing a resume?Should I include my address on my resume?Why?In the US, UK, Canada and Australia (and, indeed, in other parts of the world too), we use a lot of software to sift through resumes. Images get in the way of that process (or in no way help). Images distract the eyes of the recruiter from what’s important. We also have to work with a massive talent pool that all wants the jobs we recruit for. Things that are distracting in a negative way, cause people to shuffle past the resume. Recruiters generally hate images as they are irrelevant and distracting.Most importantly, these countries have fairly harmonized discrimination laws and employment culture. Yeah, they’re not clones. But they all have liberal lawsuit cultures and a general legal obsession with removing non relevant biases. They also all have the curious history of invading and subjugating non white people (and a long history of keeping those people out of the top echelons of employment). To that end, they are risk averse when it comes to photos. A photo reveals several protected features which can be used in a lawsuit if the candidate is rejected. So we avoid the risk and don’t allow photos.