99.9% of people who use color on their resume don't give a second thought as to why they're actually using it.
"It looks pretty."
"I want my resume to pop."
"Black and white is boring."
Those are just 3 of the 743954385 reasons people give me for putting color on their resume.
While I am a big believer in keeping things relatively standard when writing a resume, I'm not necessarily opposed to putting color on one. I just don't love doing it. I think it's unnecessary to help make your resume to stand out.
But, if you're going to put color on your resume, you need to do it strategically.
Here are the two biggest mistakes I see people make with color on their resume.
- It's used to highlight the wrong content. Your descriptive content on your resume is important - a recruiter does want to know what your responsibilities are and there are valuable key words there too. But you really want the eyes of the reader to go to your accomplishments first, not your description.
- Too much color. I've often referred to resumes as a "dance for the eyes." When you have too much color on the resume the eyes of the reader are constantly dancing across the resume which is distracting. If you're using color then use it with purpose!
Your accomplishments on your resume should speak for themselves. If you work in a creative field and are applying for jobs online, consider putting a link in your contact information by your LinkedIn profile to your online portfolio or your creative resume for recruiters to view.
The lesson here is to stop overthinking on your resume, especially when conducting an online job search. Content is always king!
