Improving your CV visually

Recruiters all over the world get hundreds of resumes every day, and they all look exactly the same—photo, personal information, education, work experience… Sometimes they might just not see that you are the best for a given position because of a detail that has not been highlighted properly. So what can you do to improve your CV visually?

There are various tricks to draw the recruiter´s attention to your best features. First of all, remember about the rules of composition: proper-sized margins, spaces between sections, not too much text. Second, do not use more than two different fonts since it creates visual chaos. Third, use bolding and italics for emphasis (either for the headline of a section or just a key word in a longer descriptive line). Underlining is not really recommended—it has been psychologically proven hard to read. Fourth, feel free to use bullet points (or any other kind of vertical enumeration). They draw the reader´s attention to the amount of skills you have listed. And last (but not least), be consistent; do not use different font types or sizes for the headlines of different sections, if you use month/year system in ¨Education,¨ do the same for ¨Work Experience¨ (and not e.g. day/month/year) etc.

That would be a classic but very well organised CV. But have you ever thought of making it even more interesting visually? If you are an artist or a graphic designer, it is essential to show some of your skills even before you get invited to the interview. Here is where infographics comes into play. It can be simple and graphic, or it can be colorful and absolutely crazy, yet still legible. Let it show your personality, your interests, let yourself be seen and remembered by the recruiter. Obviously, you would not send such a CV if you are applying for, let´s say, the Bank Manager position; you always need to consider the level of formality of a given job and prepare your resume accordingly.