Resume Templates — Yes or No?

 

I’ve been a resume writer long enough to have seen many generations of resume templates over the years. In the 1990s, there were the “resume-in-a-box" software programs. In the 2000s, you had Microsoft Word resume templates — which were either super boring or overly designed (with multiple columns). More recently, you've been able to purchase resume templates on Etsy or use the resume designs in Canva.

The problem is, many of these documents LOOK good, but aren’t GOOD to use in an actual job search because, especially in recent years, they have not been compatible with applicant tracking system (ATS) software, putting applicants at a disadvantage with their online resume submissions. 

But the world of resume templates changed when career industry pioneer Michelle Dumas introduced “Distinctive Resume Templates.” As a longtime professional resume writer herself, Michelle recognized the need for modern, ATS-friendly professional resume templates that could be used by career industry professionals to enhance their interview-winning content with visually attractive designs.

Michelle and I started in the resume writing industry in the same year (1996) and we’ve both seen lots of changes through the years. But one thing hasn’t changed: The need to create compelling, attractive, and interview-winning career documents.

In 2020, she created a series of resume templates to use with her company’s own clients. They were designed to be easily customized, right down to the color schemes. Her first goal was to streamline the resume development process, creating templates that were useful but also easy to customize. In using the templates with clients, she realized how useful they would be to career industry colleagues. So she started selling them to other resume writers.

“Our work is tremendously time-consuming and we trade our precious time for money. Writing a great resume for a client is a very time-consuming process,” Dumas says. “Our income is limited by how much we are able to produce, which makes it hard to grow/scale a business.”

By introducing resume templates into your resume writing business, you can focus more on the content creation and let the design enhance the content, instead of having to struggle with formatting the resume and associated career documents.

“Writing and graphic design are two different skill sets,” Dumas says. “We are professional resume writers, not graphic designers. While both of these — the writing skill and the design skill — require talent, they are completely different skill sets. Graphically-enhanced resumes that incorporate color and shapes became the norm and the expectation.”

Simple Microsoft Word design enhancements can make a big difference. 

For example, take this Key Qualifications section:

In the Amplify template, it becomes this:

Because the templates are provided in Microsoft Word format, you can change the color of the themes. The change from blue to green was done with ONE CLICK.

 

The templates are Microsoft Word templates (.dotx extension), and MS Word is required to use and customize them. Template collections are sorted into categories — professional and executive, student and entry-level, industry and trade-specific, career change, etc. When I choose a design, I start with the client and pick the template to fit the content. Sometimes I write the content first and then copy-and-paste the text into the template. Other times, I write “to the template,” writing directly in the template. Or, you could do a combination of both. Fill in the “easy stuff” — education, certifications, affiliations — in the template, and then write out (long hand or in a blank Word document) the other content and then paste it into the template.

Dumas suggests that resume writers can save approximately one hour per project by using one of the templates. My personal experience reveals similar time savings — more for complex projects. For an average $1167 project (the average price for a resume and cover letter project, according to the 2022 Profile of Professional Resume Writers), the investment of $21 in a Distinctive Resume Template provides a strong return on investment (representing only 2% of the project cost but saving one hour of the average nine hours resume writers estimate spending on an average resume project).

Instructions for making the color changes are included in each document, including links to videos to illustrate the process. Successive page headers are automatically set up, including page numbers.

There are dozens of templates to choose from. 

I’ve been using Distinctive Resume Templates with my clients since March 2022. My favorite designs that I’ve used so far with clients are:

•    Amplify (the design showcased in the samples above)

•    Alluring Luxury

•    Ascendant Modern

•    Blue Collar

•    Career Launcher First-Job Resume Template

The resume templates are $12 per design. You can also purchase coordinating templates (cover letter template, biography template) for $8 each (or save 10% when you purchase the resume and coordinating templates in the same transaction). For less than $21, I save hours of design time while providing my clients with attractive, ATS-compliant documents.*

* The templates are marketed as “ATS-friendly” but I have found them to be ATS-compliant for all the clients I’ve used them with. The official documentation says:

Disclaimer: While all efforts have been made to ensure resumes created with these templates will be ATS-friendly, it is impossible to guarantee ATS compatibility. The purchaser takes full responsibility for ensuring ATS compatibility, if this is important to them. Distinctive Career Services, LLC is not responsible for the content or effectiveness of any resume created with one of our templates.

But like I said, I’ve found all the ones I’ve used to be ATS compatible.

(I test graphic resumes for ATS-friendliness by saving them as text and reviewing the content to make sure it remains intact.)

The license for the template allows resume writers to use the templates to create resumes for clients. (You may use the templates with your clients on an individual basis. However, only one writer per firm may use the template, so if you are a contracting writer, you must purchase one license per writer – but discounts are available for large agencies.)

Want to try them? Get 50% off your first purchase using this promo code:

50offbearesumewriter

(Fifty percent discount is valid on first purchase of any amount. Visit DistinctiveResumeTemplates.com to redeem.)

Note: This post contains affiliate links and I may earn a small commission when you click on the links, but there is no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions stated in this blog post are my own. As stated in the blog post, I personally use Distinctive Resume Templates with my own clients. Thank you!

Tools I Use In My Resume Writing Business

I'm often asked what tools and resources I use in my resume writing business. Here's a list of them!

1&1 Domain Name Registration and Website Hosting

Affordable, easy-to-use domain name registration (starting at $.99/year for domains, and $5.99/month for hosting). You can register multiple domain names and point them all to one website easily, allowing you to promote your different services and products but drive traffic (website visitors) to specific pages of your main website.

AWeber E-Mail List Management and Autoresponder

Every resume writer needs to build a mailing list with very little technical know-how. AWeber walks you through the process of creating your opt-in form (and will even host it on their site for you, so you don’t even need a website to get started with building your mailing list). AWeber offers both autoresponder messaging (you can pre-schedule a series of emails to go out at designated intervals when people join your list) and broadcast emails (send a message whenever you want). Your first month is just $1, and just $19/month after that (for up to 500 subscribers).

Audio Acrobat

If you host free or paid teleseminars, are interested in podcasting, or want to create audio training programs, check out Audio Acrobat. Offers complete ease in creating and hosting audio clips — no technical skills required! Offer client coaching? Record the calls and offer them as a bonus to your client! And check out “sizzle lines” — record special content and give prospects or clients access. Free 30-day trial, then $19.95/month for the Basic Plan.

Clickbank

An online market to bring buyers and sellers together. If you create an information product, Clickbank is a great way to find affiliates to promote your offer. If you’re looking for affiliate offers to promote, Clickbank is a great way to find relevant products to recommend. It’s also a great way to research what clients will be interested in — find products that are hot sellers!

Constant Contact

The most popular solution for building a mailing list. A more “user-friendly” email list management program than AWeber...with social media management tools built in. If you’re looking for a program that will allow you to easily create a client e-mail newsletter and the ability to send broadcast emails easily, check out Constant Contact. Offers a free 60-day trial, and prices start at just $20 after that.

Elance

Looking to outsource some things you can’t — or don’t want to — do yourself? Elance is a great place to go to find project-specific vendors, including website designers, copywriters, transcriptionists, researchers, and more.

Fiverr.com/Vikiana

Need an ebook cover or website banner made? Check out Vikiana on Fiverr.com. Don’t be put off by the poor grammar on her page — she does excellent work, fast, and starting at just $5.

EventBrite

The easiest way to offer free or paid registration for your next live or virtual event. There’s no cost to you if you don’t charge for the event, so if you want to host your first free teleseminar, consider using EventBrite. If you’re charging for the program (again, in-person or online), you’ll pay a small fee to EventBrite for each ticket sold, plus either a PayPal processing fee (if you want registration funds to go through your PayPal account) or you can use EventBrite’s credit card processing (with associated fees). Total fees add up to about 6% of sales, but you only pay for what you sell, and the registration pages are extremely easy to set up.

Fotolia

If you have a blog, Fotolia is an extremely inexpensive way to acquire photos and illustrations to accompany your posts. It’s also a fabulous choice for photos to use to illustrate your information products (ebook artwork, for example). A stock photography site, it offers a massive amount of choices, starting at about $1 per graphic. Make sure you purchase the correct “rights” for how you want to use the graphic. (For example, you’ll pay a bit more for graphics you want to use on an ebook you’re selling than on a blog post.)

Payloadz

The easiest way to sell digital information products (ebooks, special reports, forms, guides, audio programs, etc.) online. The Payloadz Express option is for low-volume sellers and is a great way to get started. The full Payloadz option offers an affiliate program to help you find folks to promote your products, and their online store will also provide additional visibility for your products.

PayPal

Some people hate it, some people love it … most just see PayPal as the easiest way to accept credit cards without having a full scale merchant account. I gave up my traditional merchant account so I wouldn’t have to deal with the hassle of PCI compliance, and PayPal has been a great solution. It also processes recurring payments for my BeAResumeWriter.com membership site.

Joan Stewart — The Publicity Hound

If you’re looking for ways to get free publicity for your résumé writing business, you need to check out Joan Stewart’s offerings. She’ll teach you “tips, tricks, and tools” for free publicity.

Robert Middleton — Action Plan Marketing

I’ve been using Robert Middleton’s marketing ideas for service providers for years — he offers extensive training for how self-employed professionals can attract their ideal clients. His free, 24-page “Marketing Plan Workbook for Attracting Clients to your Professional Service Business” is the best guide to defining your ideal client and creating a client-attracting core marketing message is the best I’ve ever seen.

Smart Blogging Skills (Kelly McCausey)

Blogging and article writing are two of the best ways to attract clients (and generate website traffic) as a résumé writer. This self-paced, 15-week program is a great step-by-step guide to either starting a new blog, or improving your existing blog. Although she emphasizes WordPress as a blogging platform, many of the techniques can be applied to any blog.

Vistaprint

Your resource for inexpensive, high quality marketing materials (business cards, fliers, signage, specialty products, and more) for promoting your résumé writing business.

Wild Apricot

If you want to create a membership program for your résumé writing business, Wild Apricot is a robust solution that is also extremely easy to get started with. It offers a free, advertising-supported level all the way up to multiple professional levels (depending on the number of subscribers you have).

Some links in this post are affiliate links. Affiliate links mean that if you are led to a site and make a purchase, I may earn a commission from that sale.  Not all links are affiliate links. Some are purely for sharing. You are under no obligation to make any purchases from my link. I only recommend products and services that I use or am personally familiar with.

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Resume Writers

I get a lot of questions from resume writers about how to avoid the "Time for Dollars" Trap -- that is, how to unlink your income from billable hours. Affiliate marketing is one way to start this journey.

You may be doing affiliate marketing without even knowing it. For example, if you write a resume and refer your client to Bob Bronstein at Profile Research to research employers and distribute the resume and cover letter, you’re engaging in affiliate marketing. If your client mentions that you referred them to Bob, he will send you a check for a percentage of the order. That’s affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing opportunity between two companies. Business one (the “advertiser”) pays business two, the “publisher” (that’s you) for sending new customers to them. They may pay you for “traffic” — which is visits to your site; they may pay you for “leads” — which are qualified customer names who may end up purchasing their products or services; or they may only pay for sales, or when a purchase is actually made.

You can choose to be an affiliate for an individual company (on their website, look at the very bottom of the page and you might find a link for “Affiliates”) or join an affiliate network. Affiliate networks connect advertisers with publishers. Companies that offer their affiliate programs through networks often are making a significant commitment to their affiliate program, because they’re paying anywhere from $500 to $6000 or more to be a part of that affiliate network. Advertisers that also have a dedicated individual to serve as their affiliate relationship manager are also more committed to the success of their affiliate program — which means more support for you.

You can also work with individual providers. Profile Research is an example of this. Bob tracks the business you refer to him without the use of an affiliate network, and without a formal affiliate program. If you are a resume writer, you might also set up this type of relationship with a career coach, if you don’t offer career coaching yourself. The client mentions they were referred by you, and the career coach might pay you a flat fee or percentage of the client’s order. The same might be true if you are a career coach who refers to a resume writer. (If you're interested in pursuing this type of informal relationship, I suggest the "Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters" Special Report, which also covers developing referral relationships with other third parties, including career coaches.)

There is also a third type of affiliate program. I mentioned the terms “advertiser” and “publisher” to describe the companies. The placement of ads on your online content is also a type of affiliate marketing. The most common of these relationships is with Google’s AdSense program. Any business can purchase ads through Google’s AdWords program. If your website or blog matches the demographics of the customer the advertiser is looking to reach, his or her ads will appear on your content, and you’ll get paid for people who look at the ad … and you’ll get paid more when they click on the ad.

P.S. One of my most popular blog posts was an interview I conducted with Steve Shellist with ResumeSpider.com on affiliate marketing for resume writers. Check it out here.