I'm an ex-recruiter for some of the top companies in the world. I've screened tens of thousands of resumes, and today I published my preferred resume format, free to download as a Word doc, along with some general resume advice. Resumes/CVs11/17/2018 last edit: I'm working 16+ hour days as CEO of Sheets & Giggles nowadays, so I unfortunately don't have time to reply to PMs (get about 10 a day still). So sorry! If you have more questions, please see this follow-up thread with FAQs I did a couple months ago. Good luck everyone! - Colin at S&G Original Post: There was a recent post on Reddit where someone was lamenting that they had sent out dozens of applications, but hadn't heard back from anyone. I commented and told them they probably had a bad resume format and to PM me with it so I could review it for them, and about 50 other redditors ended up sending me their resumes to review. I don't have time to do all of them, so I decided to write this post and share a downloadable editable Word doc resume format in the hope that it fulfills my personal obligations (note: delete the footer before sending out!). Here's a preview of the resume. I'll keep it short and sweet, and hopefully many of you find this useful.
Source: This quick excerpt is from a longer blog on my website.
General resume advice:
Use a professional-looking gmail, outlook, or personal domain email address. Delete your hotmail with extreme prejudice.
Don't put an objective section or summary. It'll be skipped, and it's space that can be used better.
Unless you have 20+ years' experience, make it 1 page. You can do it.
Don't put your full address. "City, State" is enough.
Name your resume "FirstName LastName Resume" and that's it. Never submit it with "(Project Management)" or "Final" or "2018" or literally anything else in the file name.
If emailing your resume, always submit it as a PDF, never as a Word doc. You never know how wonky a Word doc will look on someone else's machine. If uploading to an online application that uses resume parsing software, you can upload the Word doc as well or if it's required to do so.
Try to read it in 10 seconds or less and see what you take away from it. That's about the initial screen time before someone makes an initial up/down decision, so you'll want to examine it from that perspective.
Interests are important because it gives the interviewer something to connect with you on, and it makes you more than just a faceless resume. If you put Seinfeld, I promise someone will ask you what your favorite episode of Seinfeld is (mine's the Soup Nazi).
That's the most important stuff. Here's that resume template download link again. If you have more questions about job hunting, resumes, or career advice in general, just PM me and I'll try to get back to you before long. Edit: damn, thanks for the gold! Super glad this advice is helping so many people; the comments have totally made my day. Edit 2: out and about so trying to respond to everyone on mobile, but it's slow going. I'll get back to all questions in comments asap. Edit 3: my inbox is ruined, but having a blast helping everyone with their specific questions. Keep firing away. Sunday edit: coming on 24 hours and the questions are still rolling in! I'm slammed today running a photoshoot for my company (the company on the resume template, Sheets & Giggles), so I'll jump back in when I can later. Lots of PMs to sort through too! Edit 5: See how clean those sheets are? Accidentally shot a Tide ad. Monday night edit: still answering PMs and comments :)! Hit me up anytime with your job hunting questions. Wednesday edit: over the last few days, I've responded to probably 500+ combined questions in the comments and PMs. PMs still rolling in. I think I'm going to make a "resume and job hunting FAQ" post based on these questions! 02/27/2018 edit: PMs and comments still coming in, and I'm not even kidding when I say that I've had at least 10 people message me telling me they've gotten a slew of interviews since they switched their format, and two people have now told me they found jobs after switching to this format in the week and a half since I posted this. Unbelievable, makes me so happy. 03/28/18 edit: Still owe a couple dozen more PM responses, bear with me. Also just got a few more messages from people describing how they found a job after switching to this template! Makes my day every time I get that message. 04/30/2018 edit: I'll be posting something soon that answers all the resume and job hunting FAQs I've gotten from about 1,000 PMs! Have tried to help everyone, but my apologies if I haven't had time to get back to your particular message / question. Will link it here in one last edit when it's live on this sub! 05.07.2018 edit: Part Deux is live! Click here for resume FAQs and job hunting advice. 05/19/2018 edit: About 10 20 people have now messaged me saying they've gotten a job thanks to this post after previously spending months looking to no avail. Can't describe how happy that makes me. 07/03/2018 edit: I'm sorry if I don't respond to your PM; it's just too much volume to handle. I've tried to help as many people as I can with these two posts, and I'll respond to PMs randomly but as often as I can!