Resumes: Layout

Sorry, this page is still very much IN PROGRESS!

There are a wide variety of choices of general layouts for a resume, mainly concerning the relationship of the section headers to their text. The main ones are:

• Outline. Example:

  OBJECTIVE

  Position as Dog Catcher in American major metropolitan area.

  EXPERIENCE

  December 1987 to Present: Nosepicker
  Bijou Joujoux, Paris, France
  Select probosci to include in "Monsieur Pomme" toy kits. Supervise team of five Assistant Nosepickers.

  February 1968 to September 1987: Assistant Nosepicker
  Hassis Toys, Old York City NJ
  Helped select probosci to include in "Mr. Tuberskull" toy kits.

  In HTML, this can be done most easily with a definition list, or block quotes (except that that forces a vertical space).

• Headers Centered. This is essentially identical to Outline except that the headers are centered, and the text is wider to the left. Example:

  OBJECTIVE Position as Dog Catcher in American major metropolitan area.

  EXPERIENCE

  December 1987 to Present: Nosepicker
  Bijou Joujoux, Paris, France
  Select probosci to include in "Monsieur Pomme" toy kits. Supervise team of five Assistant Nosepickers.

  February 1968 to September 1987: Assistant Nosepicker
  Hassis Toys, Old York City NJ
  Helped select probosci to include in "Mr. Tuberskull" toy kits.

  If you can't figure out how to do this in HTML, you really don't know HTML!

• Headers Left (or right, if in Hebrew). Example:

  OBJECTIVE	Position as Dog Catcher in American major metropolitan area.
  EXPERIENCE	December 1987 to Present: Nosepicker Bijou Joujoux, Paris, France Select probosci to include in "Monsieur Pomme" toy kits. Supervise team of five Assistant Nosepickers. February 1968 to September 1987: Assistant Nosepicker Hassis Toys, Old York City NJ Helped select probosci to include in "Mr. Tuberskull" toy kits.

  In HTML, this can be done most easily with a table.

• Headers Inset. This is rather difficult to do, especially in an aesthetically pleasing way, and is thus extremely rare, being used almost exclusively for the date ranges of jobs, and even then, only when the description is rather long. Example:

  Date Range	job description text  job description text  job description text	job description text  job description text  job description text
  job description text  job description text  job description text	job description text  job description text  job description text	job description text  job description text  job description text

Note that where the text is only one entry, I put no vertical space between it and the header, but where it is multiple entries, there is space there, plus between entries. That is a matter of personal taste. I suppose you could call it inconsistent...

Most of these choices depend mainly on how much space you want/need to use up, and personal taste. You can also do a mix, such as centered main headers but left-side for the date range of each job.