Creative resume ideas to stand out from the crowd

Few things are more important than your resume. When you submit a resume to a potential employer, you’re trying to put your best foot forward. You want your resume to truly represent who you are and what you’ve accomplished in your career. 

And with so many resumes flooding inboxes and applicants vying for limited job openings, it’s crucial to make yours stand out from the crowd.

So how can you make your resume catch the eye of a hiring manager? Here are some creative resume ideas to help you stand out and showcase your skills and experience.

The importance of having a good resume

Before we dive into resume ideas, let’s first touch on why it’s so important to have a good resume in the first place. 

  • Strong first impression: A strong resume translates into a strong first impression. Before you even get to the interview process, potential employers are forming impressions of you based on your resume. A strong resume can set the stage for an interview and increase your chances of moving forward in the hiring process.
  • Highlight skills, experience, and achievements: Additionally, a strong resume highlights your skills, experience, and achievements in a way that aligns with the job requirements. This allows hiring managers to quickly assess if you have the necessary qualifications and fit for the role.
  • Customized to role: What’s more, a strong resume can be tailored to emphasize the experiences and skills most relevant to the position. Customizing your resume to each application shows that you’ve done your homework and are genuinely interested in that role.
  • Stand out from the crowd: In competitive industries, many applicants may have similar qualifications. A resume that stands out—through clear formatting, distinct achievements, and relevant keywords—can help you rise above the crowd.
  • Demonstrates professionalism: Finally, a polished resume also reflects attention to detail, organization, and professionalism. This shows employers that you take your work and career seriously.

Tips for creating a great resume

As you work on your resume, keep these additional resume ideas in mind. 

  • Use a professional format: Choose a clean, easy-to-read layout. Stick to one or two professional fonts, use consistent formatting, and avoid overloading with colors or graphics.
  • Start with a strong summary: Begin with a concise, compelling summary or objective statement that highlights your most relevant skills, experience, and career goals. This gives employers an immediate sense of what you bring to the table.
  • Focus on achievements: Under each position, list accomplishments rather than just responsibilities. Use quantifiable metrics where possible, such as “increased sales by 20%” or “led a team of 5 to complete projects on time.”
  • Keep it concise: Limit your resume to one page if you’re early in your career or two pages if you’re more experienced. Keep descriptions brief and relevant to make the most of limited space.
  • Highlight transferable skills: For career changers, emphasize skills that apply across industries (e.g., leadership, project management, customer service). These can bridge the gap between your current and target roles.
  • Showcase relevant education, certifications, and skills: Include degrees, certifications, relevant coursework, and technical skills. For certifications or courses relevant to the new field, list them prominently to show your commitment to learning.

10 cool resume ideas from Picsart

Be bold with your name

Your name is one of the first things potential employers are going to look for on your resume. Why not make their job easy by making your name big and bold? There’s no way they can miss it with this fitness coach template. 

Dynamic Green Fitness Coach Resume Template

Highlight your headshot

If you’re going to include a headshot in your resume, why not highlight it? Make your face prominent, like with this acting template. That way everyone can see just how beautiful you are. 

Elegant Cream Acting Resume with Red Highlights

Play with shapes

Including various shapes on your resume can draw attention to it, just like a painting draws the eye.  Use different shapes to highlight important information or make your resume stand out, similar to how this blocky template does.

Elegant Beige and Black Resume Template

Go high contrast

Using high contrast on your resume can help it stand out amidst a sea of blandness. It creates a vivid impression on the mind, imprinting itself on people’s memory. Consider using a hard black-and-white contrast with this black-and-white template. 

Black Professional Creative Director Resume Template

Use splashes of color

Most resumes are simply black text on a white background. You can buck this trend by including splashes of color in your resume. Notice how the bright colors on this colorful template draw the eye. 

Vibrant Resume Template with Colorful Accents

Play with font types

Most resumes are going to use a plain, boring type font. You can separate yourself by experimenting with different fonts. For example, in this television acting template, a typewriter font is used, much like in a television script. 

Sophisticated Black and White Resume Design

Be whimsical

Depending on the job you’re applying for, you may want to incorporate whimsy into your resume. You have to be careful with this so that it doesn’t come across as unprofessional, but when done right it can look great, as with this whimsical template. 

Creative Blue and Pink Resume Design Template

Leverage whitespace

Most resumes are crowded, with people trying to jam as much information as possible into a small space. Whitespace can be a refreshing change to a potential employer sorting through stacks and stacks of resumes. This copywriter template is a great example of using whitespace effectively. 

Professional Modern Black and White Resume Template

Use information blocks

When a person reads your resume, they read in blocks of information. In other words, they look at one section of information first, think about it, and then move on to the next section of information. You can make your resume easier to read by literally breaking it into blocks of information, like in this blocked-out template. 

Elegant Pink and Black Resume Design

Keep it clean

Sometimes the best thing you can do to make your resume stand out is to focus on making it clean and crisp. Not overly cluttered, but not too sparse either. Just the right mix, like with this art director and designer template. 

Minimalist Black and White Resume Design

How to create a resume with Picsart

The good news is that you can easily translate these resume ideas into an actual resume that you can submit to a potential employer. 

Step 1: Go to the resume templates section

Start by going to the resume templates section on Picsart. By starting with a template, you don’t have to come up with a new design completely from scratch. 

Step 2: Select a template

Select a template that most aligns with your sense of style. There are dozens for you to choose from. Don’t forget that you can customize each of these templates to your heart’s content. 

Step 3: Use the photo editor if necessary

If you need to edit a headshot head on over the the photo editor and make your headshot look glamorous. 

Conclusion

As these resume ideas have shown, your resume doesn’t have to be boring. It doesn’t have to be a bland document without any pizzazz or pop. With some creativity and strategic thinking, you can make your one or two-page document stand out to potential employers. 

Keep things professional, but also don’t be afraid to get creative. Explore different colors, fonts, and layouts. Create a resume that is in line with the job you’re applying for but also will stand out from the pack. Put your best foot forward, confident that both your resume and the skills that it highlights will carry you forward into the interview process.