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October 28, 2024 15 mins

E2 The Death of the Resume Template

Career counselor and host Erin Ahart explains why using resume templates can negatively impact your job search. She discusses the components of a good resume and highlights common mistakes found in templates. Erin provides tips for creating an applicant tracking system (ATS) friendly resume and recommends resources for finding sample resumes. Listen to today's music recs in Career Composer's master playlist below!

Timestamps: Career content - 4:04

Penn State Career Guide (Pages 23, 27, & 28) 

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Episode Transcript

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(00:18):
This is Career Composer.
I'm Erin, and I'm helping you,professionals under 30, navigate
your careers with a music themedtwist.
I'm giving you the job searchand career advice you need to
get that job, but we'll alsotalk about music, how to balance
our personal and professionallives, and figure out what we're
meant to do.
Ready?

(00:38):
Let's go.

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusri (00:40):
Welcome to Career Composer.
My name is Erin Ahart.
I'm a full time career counselorin Washington, D.
C., and I'm helping you,professionals under 30, navigate
your careers with a music themedtwist.
Our topic this week is resumetemplates and more importantly,
why you should never ever usethem.
I'm going to explain why and forevery flaw that resume templates

(01:00):
have, I'm going to tell you whatI would put on my resume
instead.
Career Composer is a musicthemed career and life advice
podcast.
So every episode is focused on acareer topic that is meant to
help young professionals intheir twenties.
Every episode also starts withsome kind of music theme that
goes along with our topic, whichis called the Prelude.

(01:21):
If you want to get right intothe career advice, feel free to
fast forward to the timestamp inthe show notes below.
Ready?
Let's go.
In the first episode, youlearned about the spicy love
letters between Claire Schumannand Johannes Brahms.
And today's episode is calledthe death of the resume template
in honor of the death of abachelor by panic at the disco.

(01:41):
So of course I really went downa rabbit hole of big dramatic
male vocals this week.
Think classic rock fullorchestras in the background,
Freddie Mercury, Greta VanFleet.
You get the gist.
First up we have, I would doanything for love by meatloaf.
This song is so dramatic, butwhat's absolutely hysterical is
that the lyrics just do not makesense.

(02:03):
If you Google search lyricmeaning of, I would do anything
for love by meatloaf, you willgo on a music scavenger hunt
because news outlets and radiostations have been trying to
figure it out for years.
Next up we have Inertia by AJR.
AJR is very similar to Panic! atthe Disco, at least in my mind,
because of how modern they are.

(02:24):
Their lyrics and vocal lines arejust so strong.
Inertia has the same big soundthat AJR is known for, but the
acoustic version is even betterthan the original and is
absolutely gorgeous.
The lyrics are all about havingbig plans for your life and kind
of joking about the excuses ineveryday life, things that
really prevent us from doingwhat we set out to do.
And the way this song iswritten, I just really felt the

(02:46):
message in my soul.
Super relatable, especially onthis podcast, talking about our
careers and what we're going todo with our lives.
Finally, we have Until Your LoveComes Back Around by Brian Mace,
which came out in the 90s in thesame era as Meat Loaf.
Something that I'll talk a lotabout on this podcast is that I
lived in Salem, Massachusettsfor a year and a half before

(03:08):
coming to Washington, DC.
And when I lived there, Iactually met Brian Mace, who is
a lesser known musician, but heopened for Aerosmith and U2.
And when I met him, he wasplaying piano at the Hawthorne
Hotel, which is known as one ofthe most haunted hotels in
America.
Ghostbusters have camped outthere before.
And I noticed that he wasclosing his eyes when he was

(03:29):
playing the piano, so I askedhim why.
And he said that no matter howbig or small the crowd is,
closing his eyes still makes himfeel more comfortable.
And he was such a nice guy.
you can find all of these recson our master career composer
playlist.
And I would absolutely love tohear your song and playlist
recommendations too.
the links to our playlist andthe survey where you can submit

(03:51):
your song recs are in the shownotes below.
Finally, You can stay up to dateon all things, career composer
by following us on Instagram atcareer composer, now let's get
into our topic, The Death of theResume Template.
Chances are, if you're listening to this
episode, you have used a resumetemplate before, and I'm willing
to bet that if I polled theentire US population of job

(04:13):
seekers, 100 percent of peoplehave downloaded an online
template or have at leastthought about using one.
Why?
Because they're so incrediblyeasy to use.
Someone else has already donethe work of making them, and
there's a level of trust that ifsomeone made a resume template,
they probably know how it shouldlook and what you should
include.

(04:33):
If you don't know what to put onyour resume, templates outline
everything we need.
We fill in the blanks, and ourresumes are complete.
At least we think so.
I also hear all the time frompeople that I coach.
Aaron, creating my own resumetakes such a long time and
templates do help us save time.
But I also don't know thatpackaging your skills and

(04:55):
experience in a way that makesyou uniquely stand out to
employers is something thatshould take only five minutes.
This might surprise some of you,but while resumes should all
contain some basic corecomponents, your resume should
clearly be your own uniquedocument.
When you build a house, it hasto have a strong foundation,
running water, electricity, aroof.

(05:18):
But when you see and walk intosomeone's home for the first
time, you instantly know thatit's their house.
Everyone's home says somethingdifferent about their life, and
your resume should communicatehow you as a professional are
unique and special.
You can't do this by filling inthe blanks on a resume template.
Especially when the peoplecreating these fill in the blank

(05:39):
documents are shocker graphicdesigners.
They are rarely careercounselors, recruiters, or human
resources professionals.
And while I love graphicdesigners, we can't trust them
to build our resumes for us.
Another reason why we can'ttrust templates is because they
are more likely to be rejectedfrom ATSs.

(05:59):
ATS stands for ApplicantTracking System, and these are
the systems that job sites andemployers use to screen
applicants before they look atresumes.
When I worked in HR, I screenedcandidates using Indeed for
employers, and Indeed wouldactually score candidates
resumes and put the highestscoring resumes first for me to
review.

(06:20):
According to certifiedprofessional resume writer and
LinkedIn contributor, OliviaAtwood, if you choose a resume
template with a flashy design,there will be trouble with
screening software.
By using a template, you couldbe getting rejected before an
employer even reads your resume.
So let's not let that happen toyou.
For the rest of this episode,we're going to break down resume

(06:42):
templates, piece by piece andtalk about what the worst resume
templates all have in common.
Listen closely because myintention is to help you
identify red flags.
So you know what makes a goodand a bad resume.
And if you still choose tocontinue downloading online
resume templates, at least, youknow, the difference between the
okay ones and the God awfulones.

(07:04):
For every flaw that resumetemplates have I'm going to tell
you what I would do instead.
So the first thing that Inoticed when I look at a resume
template is that they almostalways have a color colored
fonts, colored borders, andunless you are in a creative
industry like art, fashiondesign, and you're really trying

(07:26):
to highlight your design skills,stay away.
Color can be distracting and aturn off to people who don't
care about the design and justwant to know if you can actually
do the job.
You never know who will belooking at your resume and what
they prefer.
The solution?
Use a black font on a whitebackground.
Other distractions might be hardto read or unprofessional

(07:50):
looking font styles like ComicSans, or using multiple font
sizes throughout your resume.
The most ATS friendly fonts thatyou should use are Arial,
Calibri, Helvetica, Georgia, andTimes New Roman.
Cambria is also okay, and that'sactually the font that I use on
my own resume.

(08:10):
For font size, the only textthat should be different from
the rest of the text on yourresume is your name and your
header.
Because you want your name topop and stand out.
Next is profile pictures.
I always thought it was superstrange when I would come across
a resume with the picture of theperson on the document.
All that profile pictures do istake up space and take away from

(08:33):
the information that actuallymakes you a great candidate.
When you hear a great song forthe first time, do you care what
the artist looks like?
Absolutely not.
The employer wants to know ifyou can do the job, yes or no.
So the less frills the better,and instead, add your headshot
profile.
Another common component ofresume templates is outdated

(08:55):
information.
For example, your full addressand a reference list.
You should include your city andstate only because employers
don't need to know your fulladdress since they're not
sending information to yourhouse.
References may be requested fromyou in a separate part of the
online application, but they aremore often requested after you

(09:16):
have already interviewed andyou're a finalist in the hiring
process.
You don't need to take up morespace by saying references
available upon request.
Speaking of elements that takeup space, columns, soft skills,
and hobby sections.
Columns are awful, I absolutelyhate them, and that's because
you never want the employer tohave to search for information.

(09:39):
Use text across the full page,with your section headings left
aligned or centered, and withyour bullet point text left
aligned on the page.
That's another thing.
Don't use paragraphs, please usebullet points instead.
Again, because it's really easyfor the employers to find
information since it's thestandard in resume writing.

(10:00):
For soft skill sections, get ridof them completely.
Soft skills are things like timemanagement, team oriented, great
communicator, blah, blah, blah.
You know, the drill technicalskills are different.
They do matter because they aremeasurable.
Microsoft office suiteproficiency or Adobe creative
cloud are included in technicalskills.

(10:23):
Soft skills and their ownsection on a resume is pointless
because employers have to takeyour word for it.
Instead, demonstrate yourability to work in a team, for
example, in your bullet points.
One way you might say this iscollaborated with a team of five
to develop and execute a socialmedia campaign, resulting in a

(10:43):
30 percent increase inengagement and a 20 percent
growth in followers over a threemonth period.
Now that is an excellent bulletpoint one, because it shows that
you collaborated with that firstaction verb.
Oh, if you're watching onYouTube, there's my cat.
She decided to join us.
And the second reason why that'sa great bullet point is because

(11:03):
it includes quantifiableinformation.
With hobby sections, someemployers like this, some really
don't.
If you're applying to work at anon profit or a charitable
organization, hobbies might benice for you if you volunteer in
your free time.
But on templates, these sectionsoften take up way too much
space.

(11:24):
Your hobbies shouldn't be afocal point unless they're
highly relevant to the role.
Now, remember when I said thatyou can't show off what you
uniquely bring as a professionalby filling in the blanks?
Well, the first reason thismatters is because templates
often include sections that areirrelevant to you, or sections
that are way too general.

(11:44):
Because again, templates aremeant to suit the masses and not
you specifically.
If you're applying to work as atranslator, for example, there
might be a technical skillssection in your typical
template.
What might be more important foryou are your languages and your
proficiency in those languages.
So I would switch out technicalskills with a languages section

(12:06):
and indicate whether you'readvanced, fluent, or a native
speaker of those languages.
Your sections and headingsshould be based off of you and
your specific experience andwhat's relevant to the roles
that you are applying for.
Also related to sections is theorder of the sections that you
do choose to include.
Most resume templates that I'vecome across put education at the

(12:29):
bottom.
But what if you're a recentgraduate and the most relevant
experience you have in yourfield comes from your class
projects that you did in school?
What if your specific degree isrequired for the jobs that
you're applying for?
You should definitely be puttingyour education first if this is
your situation.
By now you know why resumetemplates are dead.

(12:51):
Those are all of the do's anddon'ts But if you do choose to
create your own resume in Wordor Google Docs, where should you
start?
What I would love to do iscreate ATS friendly resume
templates for you that arevetted by someone like me Who
has experience as a careerexpert, but Career Composer is
still new and we aren't quitethere yet So in the meantime,

(13:12):
what I recommend is finding asample resume to reference that
you like the look of Trustworthyexamples can usually be found in
online career guides that arecreated by college career
centers And if you're a fewyears removed from college You
These examples are not allgeared towards undergraduates.
Some guides will actuallydifferentiate between examples

(13:33):
for working professionals,graduate students, and
undergrads.
I'll link a couple of the guidesthat I really like in the
description below.
Then, I would add the elementsthat you like from the sample
resume to your own documentwithout copying and pasting any
text over.
This part is really importantbecause again, certain coding or

(13:53):
any elements from the templatecould then be added to your
document and HES systems mightnot like that.
So typing out plain text isdefinitely the best way to go.
This will take some time for youto find the font you like to
play with line spacing andheadings But I promise that once
you do it, you will thankyourself later as you edit your
own resume down the line.

(14:14):
There is so much more to talkabout with resumes, so stay
tuned for future episodes.
And that is the death of theresume template.
If you do choose to continuedownloading resume templates,
again, please refer to the do'sand don'ts that I shared in this
episode to choose between theokay templates and the horrible
ones.

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite Usb (14:34):
I hope you found today's episode
helpful.
Career Composer will be backwith a new episode every other
Monday.
And if today's topic reallyresonated with you, I hope
you'll consider leaving a reviewwherever you listen to your
podcasts.
Reviews will really help thispodcast grow so I can keep
bringing you the career contentthat you want.
You can also email me atcareercomposerpodcast at gmail.

(14:56):
com with feedback or questions,because I want to give you the
career advice that you actuallywant to hear.
That's all for now.
Thank you so much for listening.
I'll see you next time and havea great day.
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