Should all resumes be boring and colorless?

It really depends on your industry. If you're applying for creative jobs such as marketing or design, and you have a typical resume that's bland looking you're likely not getting the job. On the other hand, if you're an attorney applying for a job with a colorful mash up, people will laugh at that.

Overall, the resume should demonstrate your value to the position. Sometimes it's by showing you can stand out from the crowd by designs and sometimes by content.

If you're applying online , 90% of first reviewers will never see a pixel of whatever "design" you add to it. You upload the pdf or doc and ATS extracts all the text so they can find and filter as they like.

Maybe if you get to interview stage, they may print out the actual document you sent and someone might see any colors or font choice you made in the first place.

That's why most templates you see now are very plain "walls of text", optimized to make it easier for ATS to process without you having to make a hundred corrections afterwards.

I recently saw the ceo of yahoos resume and some other colored ones and they just looked full of life and more enthusiastic.

first off, at that level, hiring isn't driven by resume as such.

second off, please don't compare yourself to Fortune 50 list, C level people, unless you're in that tier as well [and if you are, what the fuck are you doing here?]

The resume is supposed to get you an interview. It should quickly tell the reviewer 'I can do X, Y and excel at Z' towards the goal of getting an interview. Generally, the interview is where you can show that you're an interesting human.

Mine contains colouring to highlight sections and skills. Also, I played with black and grey to write body parts. And I like it, I think it is not really boring this way.

https://www.reddit.com/r/resumes/comments/bd6ryq/share_my_template/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

And I don't care about what recruiters think about colors on resume (just print in grey scale man 😠).

First and foremost, don't compare your resume to that of a CEO. Unless you are applying for the position of CEO, you should be tailoring your resume to the position you are applying for in terms of design and content.

Now to your original question why things look like the back of a pill bottle. There's a couple factors to this. The first is that a lot of resumes get screened by algorithms. So if your fancy, colorful resume can't be read by the algorithm, it will just discard it as junk. You've just lost an opportunity.

Second, it's going to depend on the industry. If you're going into a more creative and arts industry, a little color is going to go over better than if you are going into an industry like IT or Medical. The more technical the industry, the less likely a little color is to help you.

Also remember that the purpose of the resume is to get you in the door. Color and fancy won't get you in the door anymore. Telling employers that you have the skills that they want is 100x more important than making it look fancy.

At the end of the day, make sure your resume is neatly formatted, lacks any errors grammatical/spelling or otherwise, and contains accomplishments rather than just what your job functions were.

If you really want a fancy resume, create one, do some leg work and figure out who the hiring managers are for the position you are applying to and reach out to them with your fancy resume. You should really do that anyways even without the fancy resume as it shows initiative.

Focus on the content not the design. Subtle, professional color enhancements can be okay but don't go overboard. Design heavy resumes choke up almost every ATS available. Moreover, the resumes can be very annoying for recruiters to read and scan.

The only time I would ever suggest using a design-heavy resume is if you know for a fact the person making the hiring decision will see it and appreciate it. But even then it is a risk.

Depends on the color. It needs to show enthusiasm, not a lack of professionalism. For instance, I recently talked to someone who was going through resumes for a position they were trying to fill. One had “LOL” in it. It was immediately tossed in the trash.

But if you have a subtle joke in your resume that only experienced people in your industry might understand, that could work for you. Humor makes people feel good, which makes it more likely you’ll gain their cooperation.

Pro tip:

Blue font is a professional look that doesn’t take away from your document but still makes it stand out. (Think blue and black pens)

Shading doesn’t affect ATS. You can use shading to differentiate between sections and adds variation in your document. I prefer either a light gray or light blue. Always use light colors because when it prints (usually in black and white) and you have too dark of a shade, it can affect visibility.

I'm going to agree with others here and say it depends on industry. I was applying for traditional corporate roles so it was clean cut and no color, but then when i went for PM roles I added 'friendlier' text and more color.

Yes. Unless you are in a creative industry, your resume should follow standard formatting conventions. No one wants to spend time trying to work their way through a "unique" resume. You can use some color and shading, but don't invest time in design. With the exception of creative roles, no one is hiring you based on your ability to bedazzle your resume.

I’m going to echo the ATS comments. I have been applying since last summer and have had a couple interviews. I did some research on ATS and found a tip to copy and past my resume into notepad to test if it was ATS friendly. Sure enough HALF my resume was gone. No mater how I copied and pasted I couldn’t get it to show in notepad. I had formatted a table to save space and this contained my skills and certifications and awards. I have spent about 3 days now creating a whole new resume that is ATS friendly and passes the notepad test.

I personally prefer a fairly “minimalist” style. I work in marketing and I hate that everyone has started including pictures and headshots and icons and all sorts of other space-consuming pointless crap.

Anyways, I generally stick to black, white and grey, however, I do usually pick an accent color to “freshen” things up and work it into the page styling (i.e., the bullet points, maybe a heading or two). On my current resume I’m using #89f4dd. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on it

I work in marketing. The only color involved in mine is a single color that I use for heading and subheading titles.

Yes and no. In regards to colour, it comes down to design, which is made up of how easy it is to understand and how much it stands out compared to other CVs.

I've had to read through hundreds of CVs from applicants, and I will always try my best to understand the person from the CV (we don't use ATS).

If a CV is boring to look at, it makes me think that the person is dull and unimaginative. It makes them feel more like a robot and I am probably less likely to recall the CV later on.

If a CV is designed to make it easier to read, it makes my job easier and I will pick up more information about the person.

Don't go guady, just make intelligent subtle choices that aid in communicating your information.