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!

Profile of Professional Resume Writers 2022

As a resume writer, do you ever wonder how you compare to other career industry professionals? The Resume Writers’ Digest Industry Survey is the tool I use to provide this kind of information to the industry. The results are published in the “Profile of Professional Resume Writers: Who We Are, What We Charge, How We Work.”

The survey was conducted in February 2022, asking respondents to reflect back on 2021. The results were compiled in March 2022 and analyzed and turned into a report written by Kristin S. Johnson in April 2022.

If you are a career industry professional, you can receive the report here.

Here are some of the key findings from the 2022 report:

Profile of the “Average” Resume Writer
While no resume writer is “average,” this graphic illustrates the characteristics of the profile of the typical survey respondent.

See how this compares to the 2016 profile:

Interested in the full 2022 report? Get it here. 

Note: The Resume Writers’ Digest Industry Survey is not statistically valid due to a small sample size; however, the results are an interesting insight into the career services industry.

20 Years Later: Freelancer or Entrepreneur?

In my “From the Editor” column from the January/February 2002 issue of Resume Writers’ Digest newsletter, I talked about the difference between being a freelancer and an entrepreneur.

Twenty years later, it’s still a great topic. 

As a resume writer, do you want to be a freelancer or an entrepreneur? (There is a difference.)

Here’s the original column:

Many self-employed professional resume writers consider themselves to be entrepreneurs when, in fact, they are more likely freelancers. Does it matter? Changing how you define yourself might create more opportunities, lower your stress level — or both.

Without resorting to the dictionary definitions of each term, let me try to explain the difference. Entrepreneurs are trying to build and sustain a growth-oriented enterprise. It is their goal to grow. These are the resume writers who hire subcontractors, affiliate with major career sites, and aim to make more than $150,000 from resume writing. 

Then there is a freelancer. The freelancer wants to derive a living from resume writing — but not necessarily be the biggest or the best. The truth is, most resume writers are freelancers. They contract directly with clients and/or write for others as a subcontractor. They can be home-based, office-based, or both.

The key difference is that they don’t take on more work than they can handle themselves. If they start to get busy, they raise their rates, or refer prospective clients to a colleague. They don’t start looking for subcontractors, or more office space.

Acting like an entrepreneur when you’re really a freelancer can cause you many sleepless nights. You read about some of the biggest names in the business and dream up strategies to conquer the town — or your chosen niche. But if you realized that goal and suddenly had dozens of new clients each day, would you be happy working with them? You wouldn’t necessarily have to become a resume mill, but if you enjoy total immersion with a select few clients each week, you’ll have to adapt your style to emphasize volume.

How you view yourself — freelancer, entrepreneur, or entrepreneur-in-training — will determine how you manage your time, market your services, and run your business.

Take a look in the mirror and answer this question: Which are you — freelancer or entrepreneur?

A note from 20 years later:
The results of the Resume Writers’ Digest Industry Survey suggest most resume writers are freelancers, working with 2-3 new projects per week. But the good news is, if you want to be an entrepreneur and expand your work with subcontract resume writers, it’s easier than ever. You can work with writers around the country — or around the world — from your home. No need to “look for more office space.”

Looking to work with subcontract resume writers? Contracting writers can get a free listing in the Directory of Subcontract Opportunities, one of the “Making Money as a Resume Subcontractor,” resources available to Bronze members of BeAResumeWriter.com. Submit your information here. 

10 Questions with Linda Whited

Get to know other resume writers in our community with our “10 Questions” series!

Today’s profile is Linda Whited, NCC, CCC, of Time to be Career Savvy. Linda has been a resume writer for six years. She is a Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC), Certified Career Counselor (CCC), and member of the National Career Development Association (NCDA).

1. Why did you decide to become a professional resume writer?
My calling is to help more people make confident career decisions. I believe that the hours we work should matter and not just be a means to an end or paycheck. So helping others with their resume – and their career story – equips them to move toward meaningful work.

2. How did you get into the career industry? What did you do before?
I have always been intrigued by a job if the person describing it is fired up about what they do. I could be a trash collector if I met someone who felt called to do this work. :)

So I figured, instead of job hopping all the time, I might be better suited to support others to find that passion and enthusiasm for work. I am driven to help others to find meaningful work because I believe it can change the world, one person at a time.

3. What do you typically wear when you’re working?
T-shirt and yoga pants. I work from home.

4. What is your best habit, and what is your worst?
My best habit is my optimism. I find the positive in almost everything and this helps me problem solve and makes me a better friend to everyone.

My worst habit is probably having social media on my phone. I tend to scroll as a time waster and usually regret it.

5. What is your favorite object in your office? Why?
Probably the coffee mug with the hot coffee in it. It changes daily, but each mug has some fun memory or association with it, and coffee fuels my day.

6. What is your “go to” technique or secret when you get stuck when you are writing a resume? How do you get unstuck?
I get up and walk around or go outside for some fresh air. Moving my body changes my perspective.

7. What is the best career advice you ever got?
To think of a career as less of a ladder and more of a smart phone — the iOS is always there, but the apps come and go based on my needs at the time. We don’t need to always be progressing upward as our needs change over time. Changing that metaphor has been freeing for me and my clients.

8. How do you unplug?
I love movies, especially Marvel movies, so I watch them with my husband and then share the stories with my kids. We act out scenes with action figures. Captain Marvel is my favorite. #girlpower

9. What ONE thing would you change about your business or the career industry if you could?
I would make applicant tracking systems consistent so the rules we follow to optimize resumes would work 10/10 times. I’d also make sure everyone had a career mentor and became a mentor themselves because networking matters and is a barrier for so many.

10. What are your favorite social medial accounts to follow?

@CareerLeaders on Instagram (Career Thought Leaders)

@TheArtofCharm on Instagram (and Podcast)

@ckyourprivilege on Instagram

@brenebrown on Instagram

@sarahdjohnston on LinkedIn (Sarah [Dougherty] Johnston)

Connect with Linda on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmwhited

Find her company on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/timetobecareersavvy

Follow Linda on Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/lindamwhited