Catherine Klinger ⋅ West Palm Beach, FL Everglades University ⋅ 40 years experience

Tauris, I recommend that you avoid any boxes or fancy formatting--and just stick to the basics. The most important document is your cover letter, which needs to be customized for every job to which you apply. Use bullets that exactly reflect the qualifications stated in the ad for the job.

Use high impact verbs, such as "Supervised...." and "Produced..." to present your job responsibilities. Watch out for too many words; keep it simple!

Best wishes, Catherine Klinger, Ph.D.

Tauris Shingler ⋅ Pensacola, FL U.S. Navy, Petty Officer Third Class ⋅ 3 years served

All of your answers have been very helpful. My resume` isn't heavily formatted with logos and things of that nature. It's just, at least I think formatted enough to be pleasing to look at. If anyone wants to take a look its here

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oyu7efk3nm2ag2f/Tauris%20D.%20Shingler%20Resume.docx?dl=0

Kelly Williams ⋅ Newark, DE Stars to Stripes Military Transition Assistance ⋅ 10 years experience

Tauris,

While having a visual aesthetic version of your resume may seem important, I can assure you the content of your resume is MOST important. With that being said, I recommend having a 'presentation' version of your resume and a 'plain text' version for use with ATS software.

My company also provides free resume critiques to all military service members. You can submit your resume to us via email or by using our secure online submission form:

Email: Info@ExpertResumeSolutions.com
Form: http://tinyurl.com/nwz27gc

Please allow 3-5 business days for completion.

We use two different formats for corporate and federal applications. I can send you examples of each to get you started.

Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kellywilliamsmaresca

Thank you for your service.

Warmest Regards,

Kelly Williams
Career Strategist & President
Security Cleared Careers
Expert Resume Solutions
Business: (732) 686-6455
Email: info@expertresumesolutions.com
www.ExpertResumeSolutions.com
Job Board: wwww.SecurityClearedCareers.com

Jenna Klueger ⋅ Hoboken, NJ Fox Business Network ⋅ 10 years experience

Try printing your resume out and looking at the hard copy. It's easy to get used to how it looks on screen where you can zoom in and scroll around. On paper, it becomes more clear if the text is too small or if the page looks too busy. I find that printing out a hard copy helps me pick out typos too.

Simplicity is more important than any special design. And I say this as someone who hires graphic designers! Stick to one font and space out the different sections (experience, education, etc) so that it doesn't look like one big block of text. Don't worry about adding in logos, colors, text boxes, special characters, or anything like that.

Feel free to message me if you want me to take a look at what you have. Good luck with your search and thanks for your service!

Patrick Reid ⋅ North Aurora, IL United Airlines ⋅ 15 years experience

Hi, Tauris. Thank you for serving our country.

I agree with Drew; content is king. When I work with people on their resumes, I always encourage them to rough out the content first, concentrating as much as possible on accomplishments. Accomplishments, in addition to your tasks, will set you apart.

To answer your question more directly, there is no more visually pleasing resume (to a tired recruiter) than one that appears organized and clean. Recruiters spend an average of six seconds gathering a first impression of your resume before deciding to read on. Make it easy for them to pick out key info by having a descriptive summary at the top with a few bullets of your key skills.

Here's a time-saving tip. Some applicant systems ask only for a plain text copy of your resume. Have that ready. When you're finished with the final Word version, save it as a text file and get the formatting correct. Re-save it and have it ready for those simple copy and paste applications.

Best of luck. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Patrick

Susana Moraga ⋅ Hayward, CA California State University East Bay ⋅ 20 years experience

Tauris,
Never use a format. Start with a word document and develop your resume with bullets and headings.
There are lots of resume help sites, the most important thing is that you tailor it to each position using the job description and those key words.
Good luck, and thank you for your service.

Michaela Phillips ⋅ Groveland, MA A.W. Chesterton ⋅ 4 years experience

Hi Tauris,

I agree that the content of your resume is important in getting contacted for jobs. My best piece of advice is to set up time each day to apply for jobs. I find that at my company, we start contacting candidates within the first few days the job has been opened, and once we find a group of great candidates, we don't go back to the full applicant pool unless we need to.

Designating daily time for applying will ensure that you are hitting all those new jobs and getting your resume in front of the recruiter.

Best of luck!

Michaela

Drew Schildwächter ⋅ Wilmington, NC Salesforce ⋅ 8 years experience

Tauris: content and value are the keys for a successful résumé; it is a great leg up if you can have yours recommended by a current employee at that company, too. Without an internal recommendation your chances of being actually read decline dramatically. It is not uncommon today to reach out directly to recruiters via something like LinkedIn with a succinct, specific value proposition (you need X and I have X, you need Y and I have Y).

My advice would be to focus primarily upon your résumé's content. Specifically matching key words from the job description to capabilities or experience in your résumé. e.g. if the job requires that you manage a warehouse then you might include a bullet highlighting how you managed a warehouse containing $amt of materiel for 6 mos., improving speed of key item delivery by 10% through a new inventory management system.

As far as visually pleasing, I feel that you can do this and make it through screening systems primarily through a uniform, neat format. Avoid some formatting choices such as tables or text boxes; you can find, I'm sure, a lot of the specifics with a Google search.

Best of luck to you.

Andrew Brown ⋅ Austin, TX ESO Solutions ⋅ 18 years experience

Read through this.
http://www.base36.com/2013/03/10-tips-for-a-successful-technical-resume/

#10 focuses on aesthetics.
Also, recruiters look for keywords related to the positions they're trying to fill and successful accomplishments that are meaningful to the company's needs.