So make sure that you subscribe and follow and let’s dive right in. All right. So before we talk about resumes, here’s a summary of what’s been going on in my mind, in my life as a career coach and a podcast host, I had the idea of doing a completely different episodes today. And it was called from no job to a job. But guess what? I lost all of my notes, all of the research that I had done.
And it was quite a lot. If you’re interested in this topic, in this arc, in this story arc of no job to job, let me know, send me a note, send me a message on social media or reply to one of my emails. If you’re a subscriber to my newsletter and I will put an effort into it and get back to you on that episode. Okay, the other thing that’s been on my mind, because I’ve seen some posts on LinkedIn and also received a newsletter from a recruiter about this, is That I don’t know that job seekers, professionals in general, know how recruiters get paid. When you are looking for work and working with recruiters, they have so much power over the outcomes of what you’re trying to achieve, which is getting a job.
But do you know how? They are incentivized. I think it’s crucial to understand their compensation structures because it can vary a lot depending on their role and how they work, the type of recruitment that they do. So I’m going to break down briefly today. Um, the, the main things that I know so that it helps you understand what drives recruiters. Okay.
So first in house recruiters, these recruiters work directly. In the company that you are applying for. They are employees. They are salaried and they work in the HR department. And they are usually, you know, um, very much focused on filling the roles.
That’s their job. We usually call them also talent acquisition managers or coordinators. They’re part of the HR team and they have a stable income with little to no compensation. The stability appeals to professionals who prefer that consistent paycheck and they’re focused on the long term goals of the company. Okay, so that’s one type of people that you will be dealing with as a job seeker.
Then you have agency recruiters. Now, these recruiters work for an intermediary, a staffing agency, a recruitment agency, and they have a base salary and commission. Their earnings are vary a lot. And especially in 2024, as we record this episode, their earnings may possibly have fallen quite a lot because there aren’t that many jobs advertised compared to 2023 and even 2022. And their base salary is not much.
And their commission is usually where most of their earnings come from. So the earnings can vary wildly. Depending on the agency’s commission structure. So, for example, they might earn a percentage of the candidate’s first year salary, or they receive a bonus based on the number of placements that they make. So that type of structure exists.
Um, is decided by the owners of the recruitment company. This models, the different types of models incentivize recruiters in different ways. And it varies in terms of the, you know, the way that they go about finding the right quality candidates for their, um, their candidates and so forth. Usually what they’re trying to do is finding a strong match for the roles that they fill, so that they don’t lose the commission if it’s, you know, You know, if the candidate doesn’t work and they don’t get paid by the, um, the, the client, which is the employer, then you will find that there are commission only recruiters. So some recruiters, especially those that are freelancing or work for certain types of Recruitment agencies, they only earn commission.
They have no base salary. This means that their income directly depends on the number of successful placements that they make. These are, um, very different from the first type of recruiters. We spoke about the internal recruiters because those have a consistent base salary, probably no commission. And now here we have recruiters that are almost like salespeople.
So they are really driven by finding their leads and finding their potential clients and finding the candidates to match and going for it from a sales perspective. The commission is usually A percentage of the new higher salary. So usually that’s what happens to those freelancer recruiters that we see out there. And that can be a very lucrative way, um, of working with candidates in high paying roles, and it attracts a certain type of recruiters that are more risk takers and really, um, feel confident about their ability to Thank you. Be freelancing like this without a base salary.
It means also that their income is very unpredictable, making it a high risk, high reward job. And in 2024, again, we see some of those recruiters really struggling to meet their finance, financial needs, because we are in a kind of a slow year for recruitment. Other factors that I wanted to talk about is, in terms of recruiters compensation, is that it can be influenced by industry that they work in, by the level of the roles that they’re filling. For example, if you’re working with executives versus entry level professionals, and also where they are in the world, you know, in big cities, small towns, the countries that they work for, and so forth. So recruiters placing, let’s say, C level executives, you know, CEOs, CFOs, or specialized roles, you know, product managers working for tech companies, they might earn more per placement due to the complexity of the roles that they do, the highly technical nature of the recruitment process that they are working on.
They usually know a lot about the process. They are Part of that metier, part of that industry, they probably have gone, um, you know, and done the degree. Let’s say they’re lawyers as well, if they’ve done a law degree and then they’re recruiting, um, general counsels and company secretaries, for example. So they might earn more per placement because of that complexity and the skills that they bring. Um, look, I really do think that understanding how recruiters are paid can really help you.
You, the job seeker, appreciate the dynamics of the relationship that you have with them, understand how they’re motivated, understand that the times that they’re working, if you’re working with a freelance type recruiter, they might only work part time, for example, or they might have so many clients that they’re working with all at once, and it might, you might need to help understand that you are not in control of the situation. They are the agents and the intermediary between you and the decision makers, which are the employers. Um, I’ve been working a lot with clients that are booking consultations with me, where I feel like I’ve been banging on this quite a lot, you know, sort of, you need to please them before you please the final decision makers. How can we. Doing this process, doing this part of the recruitment process, engage well with those recruiters because they are the ones that will put you forward.
So this insight can also help you understand why some recruiters might seem more eager or or more pushy, especially those working on commission who have more at stake and they, you know, each placement for them is just so much more important. To learn more about this, I recommend that you listen to three Episodes that I’ve recorded in the past on this podcast. Um, I have linked them in the show notes and in my blog. So please go to that blog to listen to those episodes. They are interviews.
One of them is an interview with a recruiter from the United States. The other one is an interview with a recruiter’s coach. Yes. Recruiters have coaches, a recruiter’s coach from the U S and the third one is a recruiter’s coach from Australia. Yeah.
So I think this will be very helpful information for you. The other thing that I’m seeing a lot of these days is LinkedIn banners and LinkedIn headlines with big, bold statements about a person’s virtues, a person’s values, an inspirational quote. That does not mean anything. Or at any information about the type of work that they are seeking and why they want to get hired. And this worries me a lot.
I think that people are being very poetic in the way that they’re expressing themselves and, you know, in their resume on LinkedIn, the photos that they choose, the quotes that they add to their banners on LinkedIn, and that is not of interest to recruiters. One of the, I can’t give you particular examples because I don’t want to. Upset anyone here, but I want you to be very pragmatic about this and pay a lot of attention to what you’re adding to those blue chip real estate, um, areas of your LinkedIn, your banner, your photo, and your headline. Things that I know recruiters do not like, um, words like transformational leader or navigating complex environments or Curious Explorer, or, you know, Innovation Professional. It does not say anything about your career DNA, about your expertise, about why they would want to hire you.
You should see how they file things. If they, if recruiters have good CRM systems, which most companies do, Good recruiters do. They will be so specific about your area of expertise. If you don’t know what your area of expertise is, then work with me. Okay.
This is, this is going to pay dividends for the rest of your career. If you know how to express yourself well, professionally. If you have one of these banners, one of these headlines, you know, let me know, comment below. If you found, um, this, uh, podcast on a, one of my social media posts, send me an email. If you’re a subscriber to my newsletter, let me know.
Um, if you have any questions about banners or headlines, because I could do another episode just about this, I can talk about LinkedIn forever. And then finally, before we go into the key topic of today, I wanted to say something. More on a, on a personal note, something I realized about myself. And I just wanted to check in with you to see if this is something that you experienced as well. I often talk about how important it is to be specific about goal setting.
I’ve done an episode about goal setting very recently. Just scroll down and you will find it’s a couple of episodes ago. I also noticed that for me personally. It has to be specific, but it also has to be fun. If it’s not fun, I just, I’m not as good at going through that, you know, the actions and the tasks to achieve my specific goal.
I’m like a dog with a bone if I’m having fun with what I’m doing. It has to be fun. And also specific, because I think for me, boring, specific goals, they just don’t do it. Sometimes we forget that work can be fun, and actually has to be fun. I I’m a big believer that job searching can be fun.
I want it to be fun and exciting for you. I want it to be an experience that you look back and you think, I’m glad that I went through that because I learned so much about myself and about how things work. And I will always have that as part of my life. Professional development and my career development. I also think rewarding yourself is great, but finding the jobs and the tasks that brings you the most joy is a reward in itself.
So I have now done the boring things first thing and the most joyful things later in the day or later in the week. And that this has helped me a lot. For example, I really love I don’t know why I just sit here alone and I pretend I’m talking to you and it’s quite bizarre. But I prefer to do it late afternoon. If you’re watching this on YouTube, I really struggle because I have the sun coming through late afternoon.
Um. And sometimes the, the, the image is not so great because it’s like so much sun on my face. So apologies for that, but it’s the best time for me. And I’d love to hear if you agree with me, what works for you in terms of helping you get things done. Please let me know.
Like, there are so many ways you can get in touch with me. I think, you know, by now, and if you’re new here, just go to the episode show notes and find me and send me your thoughts and ideas and review this episode and, you know, make sure that you let me know what you think about it. Okay, so now let’s dive into today’s key topic, resume templates you can find online and are they good? I, we had this idea on the weekend, we sat and we were brainstorming about what to do because I didn’t have my notes for the episode, like I said before, and I can’t believe I’ve never actually, well, I’ve done this ages ago, but Since I started working as a coach, I developed my own successful templates that my clients are so good at using, you know, get praised by recruiters. You know, I love your, your, um, your resume, you know, it’s just so good. I hear this time and time again, I actually forgot that there is a bunch of templates out there and.
I decided to go and investigate them one by one. Of course, I’m not going to go through all of them with you today here, but I’m going to go through the most popular ones. I think that they are the most popular ones. And I want to know if you have had any luck using them because they are cringe. Let’s just start there.
Like most of them are horrible. And look, I don’t understand This one thing, please explain to me, you were looking for work, you, you typed in something that led you to find the job hunting podcast. And you’re listening to this episode because you know that today’s job market is so competitive, right? And the first thing you need to do to overcome the first barrier is a well crafted resume that gets noticed by employers, right? So, Knowing all of that, many job seekers still turn to free resume templates that they find online, hoping to, you know, fix their problems and go through the process quickly to present themselves, um, for the jobs that they’ve seen online. However, what many people don’t realize is that not all templates are created with equal, especially when it comes to passing through the Applicant Tracking System, the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which we talked to so much on this podcast. Most companies these days will use these filters, um, to, um, filter resumes when applying, when advertising roles.
It’s important for them because there are dozens, if not hundreds, sometimes thousands of people applying for one job. So using, uh, softwares is important. But even if you think about. Um, uh, sending a resume attached to a mail, email to a specific recruiter because they are used to the simplified versions of temp, of resumes that they, that the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) system requires. They will expect a simple version of resume as well because their eyes is just trained to see those simple versions, right? So in this episode, we are going to be exploring how widespread.
Spread the use of these templates are, um, by, by templates now, I mean the ones that I have found online and why some might actually be doing more harm than good. They, many of them are freely available resume templates and they are everywhere. You know, Microsoft has done many of them. Canva has many. You can find a lot of templates.
On places like Reddit and indeed. Com and so on, and they promise to simplify the job search, simplify, you know, you doing your resume, which a lot of people hate doing, but too often these templates are filled. What I have found is that they are filled with design elements that can prevent your resume from making it past the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), uh, system. Okay. So if your resume cannot be read by an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) system, it will never reach the human recruiter, no matter how qualified you are.
I think many people already know that, but I just want to validate that information, reinforce that information here, so that you understand how important it is to have a good resume. And that’s why I don’t understand why people don’t sort of be, are so much, are more careful in using templates and using templates that work. So hopefully today I will be able to tell you which ones are better and which ones to avoid. Okay. Now, this is an audio, um, production.
There is a video version of it on YouTube. You can see me there. I’m waving at you, but of course you can’t see the resumes that I’m looking at. So what I will do is on the podcast blog, I will have all the links there for you to follow. Okay.
How did I find these links? These are the two. Top links that come about when you do a Google search for resume templates, it’s easy. And of course, the first one, the most popular one is the Microsoft resume templates. And I reviewed the Microsoft resume templates and I Review them against my understanding of the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) best practices. So Applicant Tracking System (ATS) again is the Applicant Tracking System.
There are several softwares. You know, it’s not like one system. There are several different systems. Companies purchase them. Some are free, but companies usually purchase an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software so that they can sieve through hundreds of applications and do it in a way that.
Is fair as well. That’s unbiased. Many Applicant Tracking System (ATS) have received criticism because they may make the process more biased. But most of the time, Applicant Tracking System (ATS) indeed does help with diversity and inclusion because humans are subjective and they have unconscious bias, sometimes conscious bias. And if you program Applicant Tracking System (ATS), well, it won’t have those biases.
So in many ways, Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a, is a good thing. It helps, you know, it makes people’s lives more productive, especially in the HR department and in large recruitment firms. So the, the simple guidelines to make sure that the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) will help you is to keep your resume. In a simple format. So avoiding images, avoiding graphics, avoiding tables, avoiding columns, because those can be confusing for a simple software to learn, to read.
Now, like I said, some softwares are really sophisticated and more expensive. Maybe they can read tables. You need to, um, work with like the baseline software, um, analysis. So for that reason, everybody that understands how recruitment works will tell you simple formatting is best. Then, Clear section headings, right? So use standard headings with, you know, the title of the heading being something like work experience, education, skills, and then write things underneath it in a way that is not complicated by tables or columns.
The other thing is formatting save the, the resume in a, uh, word doc, uh, format or a PDF file format. Most of the Microsoft templates have, you know, are, are great because they are in Word you would expect this is, this is gonna be great because they are word docu documents and you can either send them as Word documents or you can PGF them. However, what I have found, and let me just open, uh, the, the, the website here showing the results for resumes for Microsoft. So all the templates, I’m looking at all of the templates as I’m talking to you. They have lots of graphic elements in them.
They have lots of multi columns that might not be Applicant Tracking System (ATS) compliant at all, which is so disappointing considering they are Microsoft and they could have done something that. Was Applicant Tracking System (ATS) compliant in the first place. So you would have to go through these templates and find the ones that have the simplest possible design with single column formats, because those are the ones that are more likely to be accepted by the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) without any issues. And I, and even if you’re not sending it through an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) system, you’re not applying online, let’s say you’re sending it directly to an employer or to a recruiter attached to a email, I would still go for the sample format because that’s what they expect to see. They do not expect to see, um, those sort of fancy looking, colorful, with banners, you know, weird fonts type resume templates that you will find, um, in the Microsoft, uh, page with all of the templates.
Some of them are just ridiculous. I recommend, like I said, um, A template that is straightforward, straightforward layout, clear headings, minimal, minimal design elements to avoid this excessive visual features. They not only interfere with Applicant Tracking System (ATS) everybody, they interfere with the reader’s ability to understand what it, what it is that you do. Okay, so when I look at all of them, the worst that I found, and I want you to go and check it out because then you will see what I mean by, you know, design elements that are not good. The worst that I found is called playful business resume.
I mean, the name says it all, but then again, you will see that some of the names are really tricky. You would think that they are good, but they’re not. This one is called playful business resume. And it’s one of my pet peeves is when resumes have a left banner with some content in it, and then a bigger. Um, right hand sort of space with more space where you put the information like experience and education and communication.
So many resumes have that format. Applicant Tracking System (ATS) systems hate that format. So please do not split your one page or two page resumes in half like that. It’s usually a one third, two third kind of formatting. It’s not good.
Everybody do not do that. In addition to that problem, problem, which is really problematic. This one has lots of colors and, you know, design, I mean, the name says it’s playful. It’s very playful and it has a photo. Now resumes these days in most countries, we do not add photos.
There are some countries I work with clients all over the world. There are some countries that still include a photo and that’s. Um, common, you know, everybody does it, so we continue to do it, but most countries and by most, I’m saying, uh, the ones that I work with Australia, New Zealand, United States, Canada, UK do not add photos. We don’t add photos anymore to resumes in these countries, and those are where I have most of my clients. So, that one there is a big no no, a big example of all the things you should not do.
Then, you have the best one, okay? Basic Professional Resume, that is the name of the best template that you will have there. Um, the other one that I saw that I liked was one that was called Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Classic HR Resume. Okay, so there are two templates there that I think are okay. Basic Professional Resume and the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Bold Classic Resume. So if you go to the Microsoft website, you will see those.
Um, they are simple. They have good fonts. There is also another one, um, Applicant Tracking System (ATS) bold classic resume, that is okay. The only thing that I would say about all these resumes that I just mentioned, that they are good, is that if they have shading, you know, the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Classic HR has a shading under each of the headings. So let’s say there is a name, and there is a shade behind the name, and then there is a headline, for example, experience, and then there is a shade behind the font.
I would remove that shading. Just to be safe. Okay. I don’t know that that is Applicant Tracking System (ATS) compliant as Microsoft is saying. Here it is.
I’m not so sure. And because I’m, you know, I want to be super, super conservative. The main thing that you need to do is not to make your resume fancy is to make your resume readable by a software. Okay. So I would remove the shading.
The other thing that I would remove, especially in the one called basic professional resume, is remove all of the lines. There are lines everywhere between the head, the heading and the content underneath the heading. There’s a line. And then the, these lines are throughout the template. I would remove the lines.
I don’t think lines are good. Okay. The heading is enough for the software to understand that, you know, that there is new content that goes under that heading. So if you choose the, the font well, a bigger font, a heading type of font with the word, um, software, then the, um, the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) system will understand that. So I think that the line is not important, but also potentially risky for Applicant Tracking System (ATS) readability.
Okay. So, you know, Microsoft. It’s okay, like, there are dozens and dozens of templates there. I only liked those three that I mentioned to you, and I’ll list them in the, um, podcast blog. So go to the blog and get the names right, so that if you want to use them, you know what they’re called.
Then I went to Canva. Now, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, I have said time and time again that you should only use Canva if you are applying for a job at Canva. No one else! Uh, you know, and nowhere else, uh, you should be sending a Canva template. I find them really, really risky for AGS readability. I love Canva because I am a business owner.
I am a career coach looking for clients. I’m often Um, writing posts on social media and I use Canva a lot to do those images for those posts that I do on Instagram and so on. I hate Canva for my clients. My clients who are professionals, white co workers, Looking for jobs in the corporate sector, non profit sectors and, um, and government, they should not be using Canva for much at all. I think there are two things you can do with Canva that could help you.
One of them is use Canva to update your LinkedIn photo. So let’s say you have a good photo of yourself, but then there’s something in the background there that you wish wasn’t there. You can use Canva. To remove the background, so you create, it’s a free version of Canva, you go to Canva, you create a free, um, subscription for you, you create a new design 400 by 400, and you upload that photo. Okay, then you can remove the background.
You can clean the background. You can even add another background. So it’s not white. Let’s say you just add a blue color or something. I do that for my clients.
I do something quite special and a bit more sophisticated when, um, you know, When people book LinkedIn audits with me or when they’re my private clients or even in consultations, you know, it takes me five minutes and it looks fantastic. But if you take an hour, you might be able to, to get the same result. Also, maybe do a banner. Okay, the banner should be, let’s say you spoke at a conference or you have lots that you have the sort of job where there’s lots of photos of you with clients, some people working foundations, people working philanthropy, working international development, it’s okay to do a banner that showcases that. Sometimes you work for a small company and you can help them them with marketing and create a banner for everybody that works in that company to have a banner that sort of standardizes the work that you do because you’re client facing.
So that is also a good idea. But please do not go crazy with the banner and be so creative that your banner looks like you are. A VA or a freelance worker or somebody like me who has their own business. You don’t want to look like that, right? You want to look like somebody who is looking for work or who has a professional job in a corporation, a company, a business and so forth. So, Those are the only reasons why you should be using, uh, uh, Canva.
Then you can use it for personal reasons as well. That would be fine. Okay, now, what about the Canva, um, the Canva resumes? There is a, so if you, if you search for resume templates on Canva, There will be dozens and dozens of them, and then you will find that there are lots of little tabs. So there’s an academic tab, an acting tab, a college tab, and so forth. I went to the corporate tab, and I was very hopeful, but no.
No, no, the same problems that we have found with the Microsoft templates, you know, those different columns, those different vertical columns, um, And in addition to those vertical columns, because this is Canva, way more design elements, way more infographics, and things like that. So the other thing that worries me as well is that the Canva templates, you can download them as PDF, but you cannot download them as pdf. As a word, a Microsoft Word document. So depending on the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) system or recruiter, if the recruiter says, please send me a word version, um, I will tell you what, as a career coach, if you’re booking a consultation with me and you want to send me your resume, as you should, so that we can discuss it, I usually want a word version. Okay, I do, because I can work with it.
I can provide you with, you know, different versions. I can play around with it, show you what I mean by just changing things around. Whereas if you send me a PDF, I can’t do that. So the Canva templates, you cannot do that. Download them into Word.
You can only download them into a PDF. And the other thing about the Canva is that most are paid. You have to pay. It’s not a lot, but if you don’t have a paid version of Canva, uh, they will have a little sign, uh, with a little crown, a yellow crown, and it will say Pro, and you would have to pay for them. Now, I Because I use Canva so much for work, I’m a business owner and I use it, like I said before, I don’t know how much it costs because I have them for free because I pay, you know, quite a lot of money annually to Canva to have access to everything.
But I wouldn’t want you to pay for something that won’t get you a job. So it’s complicated. The worst one that I saw here, the really bad ones had a lot of color. And it said. Uh, minimalist, cute resume, okay? But it’s not minimalist at all.
It’s actually maximalist. It has so much stuff in it. It is called colorful, pastel, minimalist, cute resume. That is an example of a resume for no one. Not even a teenager looking for their first job should have a resume like this, okay? Please don’t use it.
And it’s paid, so I don’t get it. I think no, nobody listening to this podcast would actually go and do this, this one. It’s just like the worst I found and I thought it was funny for you to go and check it out. But I feel like many of you may be tempted to use some of the other ones that are just as bad because they look cool. You know, they have like infographics, you know, and.
They have names that might be attractive to you. So, for example, there’s one called White and Black Modern Graphic Design Resume. You will have seen lots of career coaches like me saying, What you need is a black and white. Resume. And then you go to Canva and you see something called white and black modern graphic design resume.
And you think, okay, maybe this is what they’re talking about. And I’m like, no, no, this is not what I’m talking about at all. Okay. This one has lots of infographics. I have seen clients that have started working with me with resumes with This sort of design infographics and graphics because they thought it was cool and interesting.
No one, no recruiter likes this. I can bet your bottom dollar. No one wants to see this. Okay. Another one that I was worried as well was one that it was called yellow infographic profile resume.
I have seen people with resumes like this when they first start working with me. I am, I’m worried that people might think that this is a good, um, a good template. If you really want to use a Canva resume, then the best one is called the Blue and White Professional Corporate Resume. I think you could go and have a look just to see how simple it is, right? And then maybe, um, recreate it, um, in a Word document. I So it has, you know, very simple formatting.
There is a problem with it down at the bottom where it has two columns. And, um, yeah, that is a problem. The other one that I like even more is the white and black tech professional resume. And these, this one is okay. In one of the headlines, it has three columns, so do not add columns to yours.
See what I mean? None of them is perfect, but this is the best that you can find on Canva, according to Renata Bernardi, who gets most of her clients into jobs very quickly with a very good resume template that we use. And then this one here, um, that I really like as well is called Entry Level 2. Tech Professional Resume on Canva. Now this one here has only one section with, um, two columns. So remember, you don’t want columns, just have one column.
But it’s very simple, easy to read, a lot of white space around the, the writing. Good. I really like this one. So you could, you could use this. I think the best thing would be to look at it and then recreate it in Word.
I think all of these are paid. So I wanted to find one that was free in case you really, really want it, um, to do it. And it’s the, um, let me see, which one is the free one? Black and white, the black and white simple business school graduate. Corporate resume. That is the one that’s free, but please remove the lines and the columns in that one.
Okay. All the others that I mentioned before are not free. Okay. So the black and white simple business school graduate corporate resume is free. It’s the best.
Okay. Because it’s free and you can remove the lines and columns and it will be a good template to use. Alright, then after pulling my hair out at Canva, I went to Reddit and oh dear, Reddit is like a black hole, isn’t it? Oh, there’s just so much information there that there is a resume thread that has, that That is called a mega thread. It’s so big that there’s like warnings at the beginning of it. Like this has gone out of control.
It’s too big. And if I, I just, I feel for, I feel for you, if you are going through Places like Reddit trying to get advice. You would be so confused. There is just so much information. There are some well intentioned recruiters and coaches there, but there is so many more comments from people.
Providing bad advice to you. They do not know what they, you know, what they mean, what, you know, they don’t, they’re not experts, they’re just people that are looking for job like you and the advice is terrible, right? So the other thing with Reddit as well is that it is a very young demographic. It’s not good for most of my clients. Not my clients are more experienced professionals. I don’t have any clients with less than 10 years of work experience.
Most of my. My clients have close to 20, sometimes more years of work experience. So. I find that most people here are young, sometimes very techy as well, but overall the information is very confusing. You cannot, you do not see two comments, one reinforcing each other.
It’s usually like one comment saying one thing, the other one saying another thing. Something else completely different. And it just goes on like that forever. So I’m, I feel so sorry for you. This is so confusing, so overwhelming.
And there’s so many terrible advice. And then you will see like 10 very bad advice. And then there will be one recruiter that writes like a one liner and says, Oh boy, this is all wrong, everybody. Um, but I don’t think anybody pays attention to that because it’s not as sexy. It’s not as interesting.
You know, it’s usually like, no, that’s not what you need. That’s not the sort of style you need. So I found Reddit really difficult and I would, I do not recommend you going there. And also I have found As I searched and please correct me if I’m wrong, if you, if you know of a Reddit community or thread that has good resume templates, please write to me because I could not find a single one that had good templates. Most people are sharing their resumes because they want advice and they’re all terrible and they say that they’re not getting jobs anyway.
That’s why they’re, you know, sharing their resume. So you wouldn’t want to use theirs. So I decided to just move on. Move on. And I went to indeed.
Com. Now, I had high hopes for Indeed because Indeed is a good job board, right? It has, you know, jobs. Everybody is using Indeed to find work all over the world, but mainly in the U. S. Um, and you would want to know that Indeed has good templates.
But no. But no, no, it does not. Okay. So I’ll give you an example. There is a template on the Indeed, um, website, and I’ll put the link in the episode show notes for you to go check it out.
And it’s called the executive. Now, if you were an executive and you would search and you were searching for a resume template, you would go to Indeed thinking, okay, they must know what they’re doing. Then you would go and see a template. They don’t have that many templates, by the way. They have like maybe 10.
And then there is one called The Executive. And guess what? The font is ridiculous. It’s a Western style font. It’s like font that you use to advertise a Western movie. And it’s orange brown.
I mean, really? I don’t want you to use that if you are a senior executive. Please do not use it. The best one is called minimalist. Okay. So that one is the best, but avoid lines, avoid columns and.
Please just be very careful. Okay. The final one that I wanted to discuss with you is the Harvard resume. So when I was using Reddit, a lot of people were saying, Oh, go to the Harvard website. They have a Harvard resume.
And instead of putting a link to the Harvard resume, they would say, Oh, just Google Harvard and resume and you’ll find it. Which is what I did. I found two sites. Okay, one site has a template that you can download for free in Word. Okay, that’s great.
The other site requires you to log in, but it has the structure there. Okay, it’s, it’s the structure of the template is free, but the template, the Word document, you have to log in to access. And of course, if you’re a student, you would know the login. I’m not. Um, Oh, I could actually try to log in.
I think, because I’ve done some executive development programs there at some stage, I could try to log in, but I didn’t. Sorry. Now it’s too late. Okay. I download the template and I hate it.
I hate it. And I, and I’ve seen it a lot. This is very popular template. I will have the link in the episode show notes. You can go have a look.
Why do I hate it? It, the skinny margins is what gets me the most, right? So one thing that people do a lot when they’re doing resumes is they try to compress everything into one page if they’re in the US or two to three pages if they are in the UK or Australia. And what happens is you end up with a page that’s too busy and the margins are too narrow, too skinny, you don’t want that. Your eye, as a reader, has to navigate too much to go from one side to another. It’s hard to read. It could have done better.
Much better. You could have done this way better if the margins weren’t so skinny. The other thing that I don’t like is when the headings are centralized, right? So, instead of having the headings, um, Um, on the left corner, they are centralized. I don’t like that. I think that that’s kind of old fashioned.
The font is okay. They chose Calibri. Calibri is fine. I like Arial. I like Calibri.
I like Aptos. I think those are good ones. I did a post on LinkedIn a while back with the best fonts. I think I’ll find that post and add it to the episode show notes as well. People loved that post, by the way.
So that one, um, I’m going to add to the episode show notes. And it, it is Applicant Tracking System (ATS) friendly, this format. So for that reason, if you’re really in a hurry and you need a template, then yes, do this one here. Okay. And.
The Applicant Tracking System (ATS) will be able to read it. It has no columns. It has no tables. It’s black and white and simple. This is good, uh, about the resume.
I just don’t like the skinny margins and I don’t like the centralized, you know, Um, headings. When I go to the page I mentioned before, where you can find the structure described, but you cannot access the templates and examples, I think the funny thing about it is that it says, These are the expected sections, and the expected sections are contact details, professional history, education, and then it lists the other sections as optional. There is nothing optional about the other sections, everyone. Everything is expected, so I’ll name the other sections for you. The summary, It’s not optional.
You have to have a summary at the top. Uh, key skills, not optional. Um, addition, personal and interest, completely optional. And by the way, don’t even edit. I don’t, none of my clients have personal interests.
Um, in their resumes. Additional roles, uh, if you have them, you should list them. Um, they could be volunteering roles or board appointments, leadership roles, community service, those things. Licenses and professional certifications. Again, if you have them, you should list them.
And references available upon requests. I always include references in my clients resumes, unless they really don’t want to. We do always include the references. And this is a discussion that I’d rather have with you face to face in a consultation, or if you’re in a group coaching program or your private client. But I think that that is a trump card.
You should not wait to provide. And I am a big fan, a big, big fan. I think it’s. You know, make or break. It helps a lot.
It helps my clients a lot. Oh boy. This has been quite a big episode and I really feel for you, right? I really do. This was such an eye opener for me and it’s so much worse than I imagined everybody. And I don’t know, are you surprised that I’m so upset about this? I guess I, because I created this.
Bubble for myself with the best practices and the best possible templates and the strategies that I know that work. I forgot to look around and see how bonkers and confused you must be. No wonder I dislike. 99 percent of the resumes that land on my inbox, you know, from clients that are booking consultations with me or start working with me as a private coaching client. No wonder they actually need to work with me.
No wonder they do so much better once they start working with me. It’s because. Because of what I’ve just seen, it’s crazy out there. Um, I just booked a consultation with a client. Well, she booked a consultation with me.
She’s in the U. S. And this will be a new role that we will be working together. We’ve been working together since 2019, updating her resume, updating her pitch, updating answers to questions because as she evolves, you know, in her, um, area of expertise and in, Companies that she’s working for. She just gets me in for a one hour consultation.
And I’m so excited for her. And I am so proud and happy that she comes back to me when she needs me. Right. Knowing that she’s awesome at what she does. And that’s why she’s going for these promotions and these new jobs.
And she understands that I can help her during that little transition period. It’s, it’s, it’s. It’s such an important crossroad, such an important milestone, why wouldn’t you invest in it? So it makes me really proud that I engage with clients like that, that do understand that it can make a real difference in their careers. So in summary, to ensure that your resume gets through the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and gets viewed by recruiters, Stick to the best practices, use simple formatting, use standard fonts, no funny Western fonts, orange fonts, clean headings, avoid templates with graphics, columns, unusual designs. Your resume is your first impression, the first conversion point for the job you want.
So make sure it’s one that counts. If you found this episode helpful, if you find that I can help you further, go to the. Episode show notes, enter the blog, find me, work with me. Okay. If you’re not ready for it yet, it’s not the right time.
Subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to my newsletter. Let’s keep in touch so that when you need me, I’m here for you. You know where to find me. And then. The podcast has so many other tips.
If this is something that you feel you’ve already nailed, you have a great resume, you’re getting interviews, maybe other episodes of this podcast about interviewing, about personal brand, about confidence, might be what you need. Don’t forget to follow us. Rate us where you found us, write us a review for the job hunting podcast because your feedback helps me create content that truly serves your career needs. I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.
Oh, I’m exhausted. This has been a long one. Bye.
