Professional Development Online

About Sample Resumes
The resumes I provide here are generally solid designs. I try to point out key design decisions when I can. Don't use these as absolutely perfect models, but do use them to get a general idea of how to proceed. Although I designed all of these resumes, I did them several years ago. There are at least subtle things that I would change about most of them.

Resumes

• Model 1. This resume shows a basic format and provides explanation of what kind of information to put where.
• Model 2. This is another model that shows a different arrangment of text on the page.
• Williamson. This resume was designed to represent my general background to potential clients for consulting work. It is a top-down design, meaning that there is very little horizontal formatting. That marks it as more traditional, more conservative. It is the kind of resume that I might send out now if I knew that the document would be scanned and fed into a database. Note the clearly defined patterns in the text and in the overall visual design.
• Williamson. I designed this resume for my brother (thus the similarity in names). Again, note the patterns in text and in design. The lines mark breaks between sections. Headings are prominent and obvious, if not very descriptive. One flaw in design is obvious to me now; the most important bit of information according to this design is the dates that Greg worked where he worked. Although this is necessary information, it is certainly not the most important information he can provide. I would now move the job titles he held out into the space where the dates appear, and shift the date over the far right of that first line of each entry.
• Jenson. The two Jenson resumes together represent a good example of one person putting together two resumes for different kinds of positions. In this case, Kirsten was looking for work as a high school teacher or as a laboratory researcher. Note the similarities in content, and the differences in how information is prioritized by the format and order.
• Jenson
• Turnquist. These two resumes present the same information in slightly different formats. I encourage you to play around a little bit with visual formatting, generally looking for a "look and feel" that you find comfortable. There are many standard formats, and many possible innovations on design. Again, I recommend that you stay generally conservative, but that doesn't mean that your design has to look exactly like everyone else's.
• Turnquist

Site Overview
Planning a Search
Researching Jobs
Developing Goals
Designing a Resume
Sample Resumes