Top Five Resume Templates That Help You Land Interviews Faster

When your resume lands on a recruiter's desk or email inbox, you don't have much time to leave an impression.

Recruiters will scan your resume for a few seconds, and within that time, you have to give them a nugget, incentivizing them to read further.

The job market is competitive, which also means the days of mass applying with the same resume are over.

A generic application will be binned immediately. A tailored resume, which once meant going the extra mile, is now the norm.

There is considerable pressure on a single document. How do you craft a professional resume that lands you your dream job?

In this blog, we'll explore five resume templates that'll have your phone ringing with interview requests.

But first, some advice from a recruiter

Who is better equipped to comment on professional resume templates than someone who evaluates resumes for a living?

We found one recruiter on Reddit who claims to have helped top companies hire the best talent, having personally screened "tens of thousands of resumes."

Here are their best resume tips:

(Image source.)

Pretty handy, right? Once upon a time, adding an objective or personal summary was the standard practice. You'd typically add it right underneath your name and contact details.

Apparently, recruiters skip that. Information like this is helpful to know because you can utilize that space for something more beneficial or free up space so your resume fits on a single page.

The seventh on their list of tips is insightful, too. Although we may proofread our resumes, we often overlook the perspective of the recruiter. When you apply the 10-second rule, you are reading it from the recruiter's POV, which helps you decide what to take out and edit or make helpful formatting changes.

Okay, now that we're warmed up on what a recruiter desires in a one-page resume, let's examine five of the best templates.

The classic chronological resume

This professional template serves as the foundation for building a resume. Potential employers in finance and law swear by this format.

Why?

It is a straightforward and no-frills resume. The flow is logical, which helps a recruiter quickly trace your career path to establish a pattern of growth and development.

The predictability of the resume is what makes it effective.

(Image supplied by author.)

Here's how you build the classic resume:

• Name and contact details.
• Your employment in reverse chronological order. If you're applying for a head of department role, the recruiter needs to first read about your previous job, not the time you interned 10 years ago. Your early job helps paint the picture of how you got to where you are today, but crucially, it doesn't represent who you are today.
• Under each role, list only the key, needle-moving responsibilities and relevant experiences. You don’t need to mention that you know how to convert Word docs to PDF!
• When listing achievements, use stats and numbers to quantify them. For example, saying "increased team efficiency by 15%" is way better than "responsible for team management."
• Add your educational background. But, once again, only the education that matters for the role.

The classic is a strong resume format for professionals seeking to showcase their expertise to recruiters instantly.

The skills-based functional resume

Sometimes, a resume doesn't need a timeline-based employment history. Instead, it needs to scream your key skills.

Some employers won't care about the number of jobs you've had. They want you to demonstrate that you possess the relevant skills.

For example, potential employers hiring a graphic designer won't pay too much attention to your employment history. They just want to know how well you can design.

Or companies hiring for project managers only want to know how many successful projects you've managed, not how many different companies you've worked at.

So, how do you build this one in a way that you pass the first gatekeeper — the recruiter?

• Where you'd normally list each job and its responsibilities, use skill-based subheadings.
• Under each subheading, provide evidence for these skills using examples from your career, volunteer work or personal projects.

We love a skills-based resume because you can tailor yourself to your employer's desires.

Additionally, one skill subheading can be used to describe an experience from an internship and something from your most recent job, all under one heading, if they align well.

Under the employment history method, they'd be far apart. In this resume template, they're together, which means your breadth and range of skills stay at the forefront of recruiters' minds. It also makes it easy for recruiters to correlate your resume with the job description.

This must be taken into consideration when applying to companies that deal with a high volume of applications and utilise resume screening and assessment tools.

The modern minimalist resume

The modern minimalist resume's philosophy is simple: professionalism communicated through elegant, uncluttered design.

The modern resume is great for roles like web development, marketing, fintech, and crypto. It positions you as a forward-thinking person.

(Image provided by author.)

The hallmarks of a modern minimalist resume:

• Use a clean, modern font
• Keep the layout simple. One column, plenty of white space, clear section headings.
• Stick to the essentials. Include only: name, contact info, summary, key skills, work experience, and education.
• No graphics, tables, or icons.
• Use bullet points, not paragraphs. Make sure everything is skimmable.

A fantastic benefit of this approach is its high compatibility with Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). The simple structure is easily parsed by the software that many companies use to filter applications.

The graduate and entry-level resume

Veteran professionals tear their hair out thinking of what to omit from their resume. As a new graduate with limited professional experience and expertise, you might be struggling to fill the page!

The key here is to highlight your:

• Academic achievements
• Potential
• Aims and aspirations
• Transferable skills

So, the first section should be titled, 'Education.'

However, avoid discussing every aspect of your university or college experience. Only what's relevant to the job. You can discuss:

• Your thesis
• Relevant projects
• Relevant modules completed

This will give recruiters an insight into your knowledge base (even if it is all theoretical and book knowledge). For now, you need to communicate the potential you hold in the field you wish to venture into.

And if you don't have an internship or previous work experience to lean on, you can discuss relevant skills through extracurricular activities.

• Play a sport? Talk about how it shaped your communication and teamwork skills.
• Finished university? Talk about how it taught you to plan your work and stick to deadlines.
• Play solitaire? Talk about how it taught you critical thinking and strategy.

Think about your hobbies and activities, and reflect on what these have taught you that you can apply in the 'real' world.

The academic resume

Switching to the diametrically opposite of the entry-level resume, we have the academic resume.

You're applying to become a teacher, college professor, or participate in a research study or clinical trial.

You're stacked with experience, papers published, and the findings you've derived.

Now, it's time to humble-brag about it on your resume.

An academic resume has its own rules. These are not necessarily built to be scanned. People hiring academics don't need an elevator pitch; they need to know exactly what you worked on and the extent of your knowledge base.

Maybe...just maybe, this resume can break the one-page rule

(Image provided by author.)

Here are the non-negotiable sections, after the name and contact details preamble:

• Thesis contributions.
• A summary of your scholarly focus.
• A list of academic publications and presentations.
• Teaching experience.
• Any grants, funding or honours received.
• Professional membership affiliations.

Academic resumes are all about social proof. The more you have it, the more you'll impress.

Wrapping up

A final reminder: Resist the urge to put everything in your resume.

Remember, the resume is just the key that unlocks the door to the interview.

Simply include the relevant keywords and sentences.

These are the things that recruiters are interested in. If you successfully do that, the interview invite is inevitable. And, once you're in the hot seat, you can expand on the things mentioned in your resume to your potential employer.

To your success!