Without further ado, here are over 30 easy resume ideas for 2019 that'll help you get a job—including easy resume examples.
Where to Find the Best Resume Templates
Before we dive into our list of tips, let's answer the question: where do you find quick resume templates?
The best new resume styles for 2019 can be found on Envato Elements. Elements is an all-you-can-download service for creatives. It features a vast array of stunning assets—graphic templates, projects, images, and more.
You'll find hundreds of professional resume styles on Envato Elements. All are available for a low monthly fee.
For a low monthly fee, you can unlock unlimited access to the full Elements library including images, themes, courses, and more.
In 2019, there’s truly no reason to waste precious time building your quick resume from scratch. Instead, choose a template from Envato, drop in your own content, and approach your career move with greater confidence!
Elements is great if you want unlimited downloads, but it isn’t the only option Envato has to offer. Let’s check out GraphicRiver, which is built on a pay-as-you-go model. At GraphicRiver, you don’t pay an access fee. Instead, you pay each time you use a template.
On to our list of resume ideas...
33 Resume Ideas You Can Apply Quickly & Easily
If you're in the midst of a job search, your resume is key. You need to learn how to make a quick resume so you can start applying for jobs.
Here's a list of creative resume ideas that'll help you find the job you need. For your convenience, we've divided the list into four easy sections:
The creative resume ideas below will help you spruce up the content in every section of your resume.
1. Write About Problems You’ve Solved
By putting your work experience up front, this quick resume template from Envato Elements lets you focus on problems you've solved.
While statements about your job achievements are fine, recruiters are used to them.
What they don’t expect is for you to write about a challenge you’ve solved. So, don’t be afraid to dedicate a bullet point or two about this, the role you played in solving it and the results you achieved.
After that, end your resume with the following statement:
“Do I have your attention? With my education and experience, let’s explore whether I am a fit for (Company Name). Is there a telephone conversation in our future to discuss the specific results the hiring manager or principal hopes to achieve in filling this position?”
This approach helped Management and Behavior Psychologist Dr. Elliot Jaffa get a 35-minute phone interview with three C-level executives of a major baseball league team.
2. Use an Updated Email Address
AOL, Comcast, Yahoo, Livewire, and other old email addresses betray your age. It also suggests you’re out of touch with the internet era.
Instead, try using your Gmail account with your name. Or, pay the extra dollars and get an email extension based on your name. Examples: JaneDoe@gmail.com, Jane@JaneDoe.com.
3. Avoid Cutesy Email Addresses
Are you still using the same cutesy email you used back in college? Email addresses with school nicknames aren't professional. Your username might be cute or funny to you, but it might offend someone or make the recruiter think you’re not serious with your job search.
Instead, use an email addressed based on your name, or a variation of your name, as shown in Tip 2 above.
If you'll be sending your resume through email, you can learn more in the tutorial below:
While most resume templates include dates, they can be easily removed. I removed the dates from the Professional Resume Template Johnson shown above.
Stephanie Thoma, Networking Strategy Coach, says, “Omitting your graduation year safeguards you from age discrimination. Your graduation year only suggests that you’re either too young or too old, before you even meet the recruiter.”
5. Focus on Achievements
Most of the resumes recruiters receive focus on responsibilities so much that it lacks details of the applicant’s impact to their employer.
The accomplishments you list don’t have to be your own, it could be something you did as part of a team.
6. Don’t Dilute Your Resume
Focus on experience, training, and skills relevant to the positions you want.
“Unrelated duties dilute the related content and takes up valuable space that could’ve been used for keywords and skills that match the job you’re seeking,” says Nancy Spivey, Founder of Ready Set Resumes.
7. Add an Interest Section
Notice how the Interest section in the lower left corner of this creative resume template from Envato Elements allows the applicant to highlight their hobbies?
Don’t have enough experience to prove you deserve the role? Or perhaps you've got an interesting hobby that could go as a conversation starter?
Joshua Goldstein, Founder of underdog.io, a website that'll allow you to apply for several jobs at once, believes that adding an interesting hobby will help you stand out from the pack.
8. Organize Your Skills
Don’t just list your skills on a bullet point. Organize them by category to make it easy for the recruiter to see if you've got the skills they’re looking for. For instance, as a UI/UX designer, you can divide your skills in three groups: programming/technical, design, and soft skills.
The following tutorial goes into more depth on how to list your skills on your resume:
Want to know how to make a quick and easy resume that still looks good? Follow the creative resume design ideas below.
9. Tailor Your Headings to the Job
Career and Gallup Strengths Career Coach Missy Scott suggests using specific headers instead of generic ones.
Example: If you’re applying for a Market Research job and you've got experience in it, label your work history section as “Market Research Experience.” It’s a good way to add extra keywords into your resume to meet the requirements of an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and the unique header will make your resume a tad more memorable.
10. Don’t Cram It
Don’t use single spaces just to save space. If you really want to save space, try other resume design ideas such as using text boxes, columns, or charts.
Keep it simple with a readable font that looks good both on screen and in print. Stick to font sizes 12 to 14 for the resume body and 16 to 20 for the headers.
Remember, some fonts like Papyrus or Monotype Corsiva might look good on a laptop but are hardly readable on mobile or when printed.
For more information on the best fonts for resume, check out this tutorial:
Add hyperlinks to your LinkedIn profile, website, or GitHub. This is particularly important for resumes that'll be viewed online first. Using clickable links makes it more likely that a recruiter or hiring manager will view the additional information about you.
13. Use Appropriate Line Spacing
Keep line spacing at 1.15 to 1.5 so your resume is easy to skim. This is especially important for human recruiters who may be reviewing your resume.
14. Use PDF
Sending your resume via a PDF file preserves the formatting you use, so it looks the same whatever device is used to read it.
There are also lots of easy resume template that you can edit as PDF, so you can just fill it with your information instead of converting a file from MS Word to PDF.
This easy resume from Envato Elements can be saved a PDF file.
15. Stick to a Recognized Format
Use a chronological, functional or combined resume format so whoever reads it doesn’t have to waste time deciphering your resume’s format.
Not sure which resume format to use? Check out these in-depth tutorials on combination, chronological, and functional resume formats with easy resume samples that you can follow:
Yes, colored resumes are no longer in bad taste, but don’t go crazy with the color combinations either. Use two to three colors at maximum and avoid neon colors that hurt the eyes.
Yes, writing the resume is perhaps the hardest part of this task. It doesn’t have to be hard if you just follow some basic rules when writing about your experience.
You can write a quick resume in two hours or less if you follow the tips below.
19Use Action Verbs
Pair powerful action verbs like “optimized,” “directed,” or “trained” along with the skills mentioned in the job description.
If possible, pair these skills and action verbs with an achievement for a triple combo that'll satisfy the ATS and catch the recruiter’s attention.
Read this guide on using action verbs and the difference between active/passive verbs to help you write powerful bullet points for your resume.
Avoid vague but fancy phrases like “synergy” or “dynamic” because they don’t add value to your application. Plus, some people will read them and just think you’re trying too hard to sound smart.
22. Use Keywords the Correct Way
Don’t stuff keywords in your resume just for the sake of getting them there. They've got to be inserted in a way that makes sense, because the ATS isn’t the only one that'll review your resume. Be sure to use the keywords in context and don't overdo it.
Don’t use cliché descriptions like “strong analytical skills” or “team player.” It’s better to write what you did before that demonstrates those skills.
24. Use a Word Cloud
Are you writing a resume for a specific job?
Paste the whole job ad into a word cloud generator see which skills are mentioned the most. That'll tell you which qualifications are most important to the job, so you can then write about different ways you used said skills in different areas of your resume.
25. Stick to Believable Job Titles
As ageist as it sounds, no one will believe that you're a CEO if you’re 21 and fresh out of college. If you founded your own company or startup, it’s much better to use the job title “Founder.”
Fancy job titles like “Customer Success Engineer” also sound confusing. Are you an engineer or do you work in customer support? Titles like this may grab attention but they confuse the ATS and possibly, the recruiter, too.
Job seekers should have multiple professionals review their resume before they start using it. Having a friend or two read it, may not be enough. Unless your friends have experience writing or reviewing resumes for a living — like recruiters do — they may not give you the feedback you need.
“your resume will be perceived differently by different people so it’s critical you get a cross-section of feedback.
If more than one reviewer makes the same suggestion, then that gives you all the more reason to follow it.”
27. Don’t Lie
It might be tempting, but don’t lie on your resume. You'll be found out. Even if they don’t find out right away, you could be terminated for it later on.
28. Think Hard About Including Short Term jobs
It may be appropriate to include a short-term job if it was important to your career progress or includes relevant achievements to your next role.
If not, don’t bother including those jobs because it suggests that you can’t hold down a long-term role.
To lessen the appearance of job-hopping, Heather Marcom, Head of Talent Acquisition at Freedom Financial Network suggests,
“You should group together positions with similar work scope by listing the total number of years or months, followed by the businesses that employed you and your accomplishments in each.
29. Prioritize the Top Third of Your Resume
With work experience at the top, this easy resume template is perfect for a worker with lots of experience.
“Save the top one-third of your resume for the best skills and expertise you have to offer. Recruiters only have a few minutes to skim through your resume, so you want them hooked from the get go.”
30. Keep a Master Resume
Make a master resume that includes all the jobs and skills you ever had. Include everything you did for each job, every award, professional association, and accomplishment.
Keep adding to this list every time you get a new project or job. Then when you need to write a resume for a specific job ad, just pull out information you need from this compilation.
31. Don’t Claim to be the Best
Don’t waste your time claiming you’re the best candidate for the job. That’s a waste of space in your resume because only the recruiter can decide that.
32. Match LinkedIn With Your Resume
Make sure the information on your professional resume matches the information on LinkedIn.
Your resume and LinkedIn profile serve two different purposes, but they should at least tell the same story about your career’s progression. Make sure the years, employers, skills, and experience listed are the same for your LinkedIn and resume to avoid confusion.
33. Follow-Up
However eye-catching your resume is, it could still get lost in someone’s mailbox or desk pile. It’s not enough to get you a job. You need to follow-up with a strategically written email or well-timed phone call to remind the recruiter of your interest in the role.
Create Your Resume Now
This article has given you plenty of tips to start writing your resume. Remember, the resume itself isn’t enough to land you a job so don’t rely on it. You've got to network, practice for interviews, and negotiate well too.
And don't forget to choose a good professional template for your resume. Make a resume fast and easy with an Envato Elements resume template. Or download a quick resume template for one-time use from GraphicRiver.
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