Happy About My Resume

I just set up a new  private email account through gmail and I’m exploring all my Google account has to offer. They have some great templates for time management, scheduling, and budgeting…for all the things I need to organize and no one else needs to see.

They also have dozens of resume templates and I’ve seen just about every one of them come through my Career Solvers site where I offer free resume critiques. And they always look horrible.

Templates are great for creating processes and minimizing the effort of creating a format from scratch every time you need to track something. They are not great for developing one of the most important marketing tools you will ever write. I looked up the definition of template and here is the explanations I found. “Templates are pre-existing forms that include standard text and spaces to fill-in-the-blanks with standard information.”  Hmm. Doesn’t sound like a great strategy for a job seeker who is trying to differentiate himself during a search.

If you are writing a resume, skip the template approach. Chose a design that emphasizes your strengths and doesn’t force you to put your qualifications into a prefabricated form. Dare to be different and break away from the pack. And if you need some ideas to get the creative juices flowing, check out Happy About My Resume to jump start the process.