How to Create a Professional Résumé in Microsoft Word
Pressing the send button when sending your résumé to a potential employer can be a nerve-racking experience. We’re here to show you how to create a résumé using Microsoft Word and provide a few tips on getting you through the résumé screening process so you can press that send button with confidence.
What is a Résumé?
A résumé, often referred to as a CV (curriculum vitae), is a summary of a person’s background and experience, including work experience, education, and even volunteer work, and its most common use is to send to potential employers when searching for a new career opportunity. In fact, though taking on a much different form than that of what you’d expect a résumé to look like today, Leonardo Da Vinci even did this himself, and he is often given credit as the first person to create a resume.
Of course, the résumé has undergone quite the transformation since Da Vinci’s 1482 version, drastically so during the age of word processors and digital typesetting in the 1970’s—40 years after résumés became an institution. Fast-forward to today and not only do you have your standard .doc or .pdf résumé, but you’ll also see people uploading video résumés on YouTube and using social media platforms like LinkedIn to sell themselves to companies.
We should be thankful for these developments because now we can skip the quill and ink and jump straight into Microsoft Word.
Using a Microsoft Word Résumé Template
Microsoft Word offers a bunch of résumé templates. Some are beautiful; some are not. We’ll let you decide which style fits you best, but here’s where you can find them.
Go ahead and open Word. As soon as you do, you’ll be greeted with several different templates to choose from, ranging from a simple blank document, cover letters, résumés, or even seasonal event flyers. Click the “Resumes and Cover Letters” link under the search box to see only those types of templates.
Now, you’ll see all the different resume styles Word has to offer. There are a lot of different styles and color schemes to choose one, so pick what feels right. If you scroll down the list a bit, you’ll also see some plainer resume templates designed for different purposes—like an entry-level, chronological, or extended CV style.