Does It Matter Which Resume Font You Use?
Monday, July 11th, 2011
Yes and no. While it’s unlikely someone will scrutinize your documents and spend precious time trying to identify the style, it can make a subtle difference. Nearly every time someone sends me their resume, it’s in Times New Roman, and statistics back me up – an estimated 90% of resumes are written in Times! Not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just overused. By choosing a more unique font (a change that takes less than 5 seconds to make), your resume will be slightly different from most of your competition – never a bad thing when there can be upwards of 100 applications for some jobs.
So, which font should you use? I once heard that after Times New Roman, Arial comes in second place. There’s good reason to use it, aside from the fact that it stands out more than Times. It’s a clean font, and very easy for most people to read. Still though, wouldn’t you like to maximize your marketing materials and stand out even more?
No, I’m not suggesting you use Wingdings! In fact, there’s a risk to using some of the little known fonts, as they might not translate well across different computer systems. To get you started, a few of my favorite fonts for resumes are: Garamond, Century Gothic, Verdana, and Tahoma. While these are just a few possibilities, consider your personal situation before making your final selection. The font should fit in well with your industry (for example, more conservative for a role in banking), and the overall “look” needs to work. Set your resume aside for a day and come back to finalize. If you’re still happy with your choice, you’re good to go!
Posted in Resumes |
Cut Down On The Time You Spend Searching For Jobs Online
Thursday, July 7th, 2011
By now you may have heard that networking is the number one way to get a job. While that’s true, people still find positions through job boards, or else they wouldn’t exist! However, it’s easy to get sucked into searching for hours on end, or worse, get so overwhelmed you give up on looking altogether. Still, with the rule of thumb being to limit your use of traditional job boards to just one hour a day, what is the alternative?
They’re called aggregators, and two of the most well-known are Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com. These sites pull millions of job listings from all across the internet. Instead of needing to go from one site to another each day, you can find all those listings in one place. By entering keywords and location, you’ll get a list of job ads that fit your criteria. You can then get more specific and search by date posted, title, and years of experience, just to name a few. You can even search under date posted, “since last visit.” In addition, you can register for a free account and get set up to receive customized email alerts.
Employers still tend to check their own sites first, so you may just want to use these aggregators to gather leads. When you find a job you’re interested in, go directly to the company’s website and apply there.
Though aggregators are a huge help, using job boards is just one method of searching. On top of that, it’s still the least effective way to find a position. Make online searching a part of your strategy, but spend the bulk of your time on other activities.
Tags: Applying Online, Indeed.com, Job Search Strategies, SimplyHired.com
Posted in Job Boards, Job Search Strategies |
