Design a personalized and professional résumé.

What Makes a Professional Document

Start your project board
Share a copy of your existing résumé on your project board so we can see a before/after.

Visit the Q&A Inspiration thread to share links for any beautifully designed documents you find.
Print your résumé
We may live in a digital world, but printing documents is the best way to edit them. Make sure that the content is up to date. Start looking critically at the information. Scribble notes on it as you go through the course videos (it's ok to be messy in this phase).
Download InDesign (optional)
InDesign is a proprietary software that requires a license. A 30-day trial is available for download at Adobe.

Warning: if you are working on your résumé you will need an active version of InDesign in order to make edits. You can open an InDesign CS3 file in CS6, but not vice versa. Just be prepared if you ever need to make edits.

Thinking Critically About Content

Get feedback on your résumé/CV
Ask at least 2 people to read over your résumé and get their feedback. This could be friends, family, or a Skillshare classmate. Try to cut any excess "fluff" and irrelevant information and make sure you've included any key updates. Sometimes it's easy to forget the obvious information, hence making it helpful to have other sets of eyes to look over it.

Thinking critically about the content of any document in the early design phases will save you a lot of time in the long run.

Structuring Your Document: Layouts

Bring your résumé into InDesign
Either bring all the text into InDesign at once, or treat each section as its own text box.

Key Design Concepts

Sketch your ideas
Annotate your existing résumé to note problem areas.

Take a piece of paper and make a quick sketch or two of a layout you'd like for your résumé. Realize it's normal for preliminary sketches to change by final designs, but it's nice to have a starting point.

Type Selection

Select a font family
Chose a font where you have at least 3 weights for variation. Decide if you're a serif or sans serif.
Test paragraphs
Take sample text from your résumé and try it in a dozen different variations, changing the font, font weight, size, leading, etc. Print out your test page when you're done.

Details + Finishing Touches

Create a type treatment for your name and contact
Think about creating a letterhead for yourself that can be used across several professional documents.
Add extra touches
Where in your document can you add simple touches? Bullet points? Glyphs? Section headers?

Exporting Final Files

Save your document
Save your document regularly while you are working on it. The worst is losing your work.

If you are exploring a few ideas you can "duplicate page" with the arrow toggle in the pages palette. This way you will have another "backup" of your work to refer back to.

Make sure you save your final document with your name in it.
Run spell check
Many employers won't consider a résumé with a typo in it. Spell check is very important.
Have someone else proof your document
The more you look at a document the easier it will be for you to miss errors. Print a copy and ask at least one other person to read over it.

You may have to go back and tweak the design based on some feedback you receive. It may feel like a pain at the time, but will pay off in the long run.
Add hyperlinks
Be sure that any websites listed in your résumé are clickable by making them hyperlinks.
Export your document as a pdf
Ideally your file should be smaller than 100kb. A text only document should not be a very heavy file (images will make files bigger).
Print your résumé on nice paper
A paper with a nice weight and finish adds a professional touch. The paper marketed for résumés at office supply stores is not necessarily the best paper for this project.

Additional Resources

For more of a beginner's look at InDesign and working with images, sign up for my Intro to InDesign Skillshare course. The code REDESIGN will get you $10 off.

For something more lighthearted, I also teach Map Making on Skillshare!
Use the Skillshare classroom to make the most out of this learning experience. The DISCUSSION area (formerly known as Q&A) allows us to have conversations and share great examples with eachother in one place. Whenever possible, please add your comments to exisiting threads. By asking questions here, everyone can benefit from knowing the answer.

INSPIRATION: documents – share great professional documents

Résumé & CV resources – let's learn from different industries

Design – questions + resources about anything design related

InDesign + Technical Questions – software related questions

Skillshare: questions, comments, suggestions – any general information about the Skillshare platform
Links from the inspiration videos if you want to learn more about the people/projects (just for fun):
- Jessica Heltzel + Kern & Burn
- Julie Sarperi (Carnets de Traverse)
- Angelo Alcasabas
- Ann Alcasabas
- André Lavergne
- Kate Bingaman-Burt
- Meena Khalili
- Rena Tom (Make Shift Society)
- Ellen Lutpon + Thinking with Type
- One Page Proposal (mention only)
- Courtney Eliseo of Seamless Creative + Design Work Life (Skillshare class)
- Breanna Rose Be Free, Lance series (invoice post)
- Eleanor Grosch
- Michael Cina (The Great Discontent interview)
- Studio/Practice
This Résumé Alternative Could Land You Your Dream Job on Mashable
InDesign is a proprietary software that requires a license. A 30-day trial is available for download at Adobe.

Warning: if you are working on your résumé you will need an active version of InDesign in order to make edits. You can open an InDesign CS3 file in CS6, but not vice versa. Just be prepared if you ever need to make edits.
Not all résumés you find are created equal. Start developing a critical eye and understand why some layouts/designs are stronger than others. Places to look for sample résumés:
- search Etsy
- search Pinterest
- search Behance
- search Cargo Collective (look for sites with linked CVs)
- Design Love Fest advice post
Career development advice for résumés, CVs and cover letters from UVA. Share more resources in the Q&A class resource thread.
LinkedIn is a great way to manage your job experiences and think about new skills. It's also a great place to manage your professional contacts. All profiles have the same format so you really have to write your profile in a way to highlight your experiences. Key words are important here. (Note: I've had several friends find jobs through LinkedIn in a tough job market).
Somewhat solicited résumé advice, a blog post to get you thinking.
How to Write a Killer Freelance Résume on Freelancers Union
4 Tips to Make Your Résumé Stand Out / on Mashable
9 Résumé Mistakes that Might Cost You a Job on Fast Company
Adobe Help covers a lot of topics related to InDesign and how to use the tools. Google + YouTube can also be helpful for finding different explanations of how to use tools.
Practical Typography is an incredible resource by Matthew Butterick. He has an entire chapter devoted to Résumes is a must read. Also check out the Page layouts section.
InDesign master pages.
Grids + baseline grid on Thinking with Type.
Practical Typography + chapter on text formatting
Thinking With Type

Ellen Lupton's *FREE* Skillshare course Typography That Works: Typographic Composition and Fonts. Taking the time to watch this class will save you a lot of time and make working with type easier in the long run.

Ellen Lupton's book Thinking With Type (buy here) is an invaluable resource. There is also an accompanying website with a ton of information including downloadable PDF lectures. To start explore the TEXT section and mixing typfaces.
Lecture slides.
Fonts: MyFonts (their newsletters are a nice way to see fonts in use), H&FJ, House Industries

For display fonts: League of Moveable Type, Lost Type

Free: Font Squirrel, Da Font (be careful with free fonts)
TYPOGRAPHY resources on the Skillshare discussion board. (The top one is a helpful resource for mixing type, with visual examples!). Share any other helpful tools you come across too!
Fonts in Use helps name fonts you see in the world around you.

What the Font is another helpful tool for identifying fonts.
Adobe InDesign help page on character & paragraph styles. Adobe TV also covers paragraph styles + caracter styles in more in depth videos if it's something you want to explore further.
Lecture slides.
Working with glyphs in InDesign.
Using typography properly will show your mastery of language. Using em dashes, en dashes, quotes, and slashes properly will get you noticed in some industries. Knowing how to type them on your keyboard is also important.
- Quotes and Accents
- Smart Quotes for Smart People
Add elements of infographic design from Liz Meyer + Gavin Potenza's Skillshare classes:
- Information Design: Turning Location Based Ideas into Infographics
- Beginning Infographics: Information Driven Storytelling
The Noun Project is a mega resource of symbols. They also offer the FREE Skillshare class Illustrate Your Day: An Intro to Symbol Design.

Symbol Set icon library.
Practical Typography's guide to exporting a PDF.
Use Dropbox to share the link to your résumé (so you can secretly update it later).
Recommended Skillshare classes:

Typography that Works *FREE!*
Beginning Infographics

Crafting a Brand Identity
Contract Writing for Freelancers
Lessons in Launching your Creative Career

Intro to InDesign (code REDESIGN for $10 off)
Intro to Photoshop
Ins & Outs of Illustrator

Erin McDonough

--

13