Article by J. T. Kirk
While the information on your résumé may affirm your expertise and professionalism, the format and presentation of that information must work like a silent partner that enhances that overall image you want to convey to hiring managers. Purposeful use of subtle design elements can add a restrained emphasis on key points that don’t overpower the overall information.
Résumé Format and Presentation
There as many suggestions about résumé presentation formats and style as there are résumé writers, so your personal preference-seasoned-with-common-sense issue is the order of the day. Most outstanding examples follow two basic rules: (1) keep it simple, and (2) two pages or less.
If I’m like most hiring managers, here’s what I want in a résumé format and presentation:
* No more than two font styles (one for headings; one for body content)
* For hard-copy versions, white copier or printer bond #24 or #28 paper
* Common fonts and font sizes (Times New Roman, Palatino, or similar; Arial, Helvetica or similar-no Courier or exotic fonts; 12 or 14 point on headings with 10 to 12 point size in body content)
* Conservative use of bold and italics (use bold to highlight quantifiable achievements, such as percent improvements, dollars earned/saved/costs avoided)
* Vertically aligned bullet lists (bullet lists help the hiring manager find information quickly)
* No spelling errors; perfect punctuation (more than 75% of hiring managers reject applicant résumés with spelling errors or grammatical mistakes, according to the Society for Human Resource Management)
* Generous use of white space (at least 1″ margins all the way around the edges; additional spacing between information blocks to show separate content areas); white space-particularly margin space-is a design element, much the same way a picture frame draws attention to the painting it encloses, so consider its application appropriately.
How About a Video Résumé?
That sounds like a creative and unique way to be remembered by hiring managers, right? Well, before you pull out the digital camcorder, have you ever heard of Aleksey Vayner? As a senior at Yale, he created a video résumé entitled “Impossible is Nothing” for potential investment banker hiring managers at UBS, and he never dreamed of the results. He included video clips of his bench pressing, skiing, tennis prowess, some dance moves that would make Baryshnikov blush, and finally, the ultimate video cliché: karate chopping a stack of bricks. Underlying the video are Vayner’s own unique diatribe about the ingredients for attaining success in the working world. One of those hiring managers emailed the video to other investment bankers, and from there it went to YouTube, where it instantly went viral. The video is disappearing from the internet quickly, being replaced by many spoofs of Vayner’s original.*
The media and bloggers everywhere ran with the story, thereby making Mr. Vayner’s humiliation total and complete. A wild and crazy guy, for sure.
Besides the video résumé just being an ineffective medium for getting a hiring manager’s attention, Mr. Vayner mistakenly believed that a résumé was about him, and not what his skills, knowledge, and experience could do for the hiring manager. I think the title of the video résumé should have been a clue (or maybe a warning). He is, in a way, a pioneer; for he showed many millions of people a new way not to get hired.
When conveying a history of your expertise in a résumé, creativity must take a back seat to simplicity and professionalism. Even the cover letter, which is actually a creative marketing piece, has boundaries on just how much ingenuity and imagination is effective (or even tolerated). Creativity becomes unbounded, however, in how you approach your job or career strategy.
*You can watch the original video at http://hk.video.yahoo.com/ video/video.html?id=1039133&p=%C2%B7 and review the Wikipedia and Google entries to read the press (most of it bad) he continues to generate.
About the Author
J.T. Kirk is the author of Confessions of a Hiring Manager:Sage Advice for Daring Job Seekers and Career Changers in a Confused Economy. J.T. Kirk has more than 20 years experience hiring manager positions for Fortune 500 companies. He now writes books on job and career strategies, provides workshops, and works with individual clients who desire a job or career change. Visit http://www.jtkirk-author.com/ for additional job and career information.
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