The CV Toolkit – Resume Templates


Keeping your credentials up-to-date is crucial.  In the ever-changing job market (and world, for that matter), it’s important to keep on top of what skills and experience you have acquired.  It may seem onerous, but there are ways to do it quickly, easily and consistently – you can maintain both your productivity and resumé with the right tools.  That’s where WorkAwesome comes in.

We’ve developed a series called The CV Toolkit that will help you do just that – keep your CV up-to-date while you keep being awesome at being productive.  Each entry in the series will be found at the beginning of the week – and while they won’t appear every week, you’ll find tips, samples and more that will help you keep your resumé in tip-top shape.

To get you started, here are a few options at your disposal when searching for great-looking resumé templates:

Online Services

Sites like Pongo Resumé offer a variety of template styles that cater to different areas of interest.  They can be saved and delivered in a variety of different file formats – handy if you want to modify it yourself easily and even handier should want to submit PDFs directly, for example.  Sites such as this often allow you to create cover letters and even provide support in terms of how to land that interview, how to structure your resumé and cover letter and more.  However, these services are often subscription-based (with varying costs depending on level of services, payments terms, etc.), so give them a try first before committing.  If they don’t offer a free trial, it’s best to steer clear.

Downloadable templates for your word processor of choice

Whether you use Word, Pages or some other proprietary software you can find templates online that you can download and use at your leisure.  The great thing about these is that they’re often lower-priced than the services mentioned above (some are even free!), and you’ll have a wider range to choose from since you’re not stuck in one service.  Quality can be an issue here, however, so you may have to search around for a while to find one that suits your needs and works well on all fronts.

Existing templates on your word processor

These accompany your software and are easily modifiable – if you know what you’re doing and have the time to do it right.  Using the pre-installed templates are useful to just keep things up to date while you search for a resumé style that is just right for you and your field.

What do you use to build your resumé?  Do you have a favorite service or product you use?  We’d love to hear about in the comments!

Next time on The CV Toolkit, we’ll discuss the popular social network for professionals, LinkedIn.


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Mike Vardy an editor on Work Awesome. We could tell you where his personal productivity parody site, Eventualism and all of his other projects reside on the web, but you'd be best served going to Vardy.me and following the trail of virtual bread crumbs from there.

Discussion

  1. Mohammed on the 30th May

    I look for inspiration then create my own http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmahgoub-the-designer/4653607814/

  2. Alex on the 31st May

    Beautiful post.
    Thank`s.

  3. cv templates on the 1st June

    Amazing site. Very informative content, Nice cvs too. keep it up.

  4. Powerpoint CV templates on the 29th October

    Hi, nice post, thanks! You’re mentioning the usual softwares like Word to design your CV, but have you already thought about doing it with Powerpoint? It is unusual but I find it very adapted (because esier to use) for designing a nice CV…

    Here you could find example: http://www.showeet.com

    What do you think?

  5. Holly on the 3rd October

    1. “you can find templates online that you cna download”
    typo: you CAN not you CNA

    2. You are not going to suggest any? What is the value of this article? Consider these:

    http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/results.aspx?qu=resumes
    http://www.hloom.com/download-professional-resume-templates/

    • Rebecca A. Watson on the 6th July

      Edited to fix the typo. Thanks Holly. And thanks for the suggestions.

  6. Julian on the 17th June

    Complementary to resume generation software, you can use Word & PowerPoint to design a resume. A resume presentation can make the recruiter to go through the slides very easy.

    In addition to the suggestions provided by Holly, I’d suggest this simple, but free, resume template:

    http://slidehunter.com/powerpoint-templates/resume-powerpoint-template-cv-template/

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