30+ Creative Resume Ideas to Present Yourself

The only problem with these formats is: most employers only accept resume via email and use the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Any graphics and other bells will show up correctly (jumbled up) and will look generic. The only this would work would be for the candidate to drop or mail the resume. HR mgrs do not have the time to go through each resume, so it will probably wind up in file 13. All resumes submitted and scanned by the ATS will all look the same, regardless of how you make it look. HR is looking for skills and experience. The following explains:

YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD THIS ADVICE for making your resume stand out: Sprinkle in plenty of juicy key- words so recruiters will pluck your document out of the pile.
But these days, the first review of your resume is more likely to be a software program, known as an applicant tracking sys- tem (ATS), than a human being interested in the quality of your paper stock and the power of your prose. While those qualities will be important in subsequent rounds, your first challenge will be to win over a very sophisticated machine that plays by its own complex rules.

Don’t choke the ATS
Overly formatted resumes and resumes embedded with pictures, graphics and lo- gos can be incompatible with most ATS software.
Recruiters and human-resources pro- fessionals call it “choking the system”: An applicant fills his resume with pictures, graphics and logos; headers and footers; and formats that make it difficult for the
The keyword laundry list will no lon- ger carry the day, but keywords remain important to the resume and must be included, Sigelman said. “Some candi- dates (for the Java engineering position example) might not write the word ‘Java’ in their resume, believe it or not,” he said. “I (examined) one job description looking for a geologist. (The candidate’s resume listed terms including) water modeling, etc. — all sorts of hydrology (-related terms) and things like that,
software to read and sort the text into categories or cause it to crash altogether. It’s a sure way to ensure your resume never makes it to a recruiter, said Laura Michnya, the project man- ager of recruiting systems and process for BAE Systems.

As with graphics, so too with cut-and-pasted text when up- loading a resume to a Web site: It’s often the cause of ATS choking. That’s why Michnya has gone to pains to induce can- didates to upload resumes, even switching the order of options on the company’s careers site so that the “Upload” option comes first, in big, red text, with the “Cut and Paste” option moved to the bottom of the page.