Recently Caroline Moore (my long time girlfriend) and I have been working on her resume. Here’s what it looks like right now (and I’m sure it isn’t done):

After you have found the story that you want to tell with your resume it’s time to start getting it on the page.
Here’s the conventional wisdom on resume design: portrait, Times New Roman, black, 12pt, single spaced, bold the company names. You must include sections for your contact information (with full street address), your job history, your education, your skills, and a list of references with complete contact information. Your resume should be very uniform.
Here’s what I say: your resume is a document communicating something about you. It’s a page from one human to another. If you’ve started with your story then your resume already says a lot about you so why would you take all of that and throw it away?
Your resume should also optimize those first 15 seconds that you have with someone. It’s quite likely that you won’t make it through those 15 seconds and onto a first interview so there’s a lot of incentive to make it count.
Ok, first a couple of things. Don’t put your full contact information on your resume. It’s a document that’s going to be widely circulated. If you’re applying to a big company it will probably be handed from someone in HR to someone else in HR then to someone else in the department you’re interviewing with and so on. What everyone really needs is how they can get in touch with you. Today that’s phone and email. Those things matter. As far as location what matters the most is your general location. This answers the question: are you relocation.
The first contact someone will probably have with your resume is on a computer. On a computer portrait doesn’t make sense. We have way more pixels to play with in landscape. This is why I recommend that you design your resume in landscape. If someone has very little time with you make it count.
As a document designed for humans your resume doesn’t have to fit a standard form. I think there’s a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt about stepping outside of standard resume formats. What if the company refuses to look at it? What if it isn’t what they’re looking for?
Here’s my thinking on that. If a company won’t look at your resume because it isn’t the standard format is that the kind of company you want to work for? If it’s not Times New Roman, black, 12pt single spaced and that’s what disqualifies you, you probably didn’t want that job to begin with.
So what should a resume look like? It should communicate something about the applicant. I hope Caroline’s resume communicate’s a sense of boldness, confidence, and transparency. I hope the colors, the fonts, the spacing, everything contributes to this feeling.
One more time, here’s the resume as it is today:

The font sizes have been optimized so that the more important information is bigger. Caroline’s name is the biggest thing on the page. Next, category headers, then job headlines and finally job details and quick summary. The size indicates something about the importance.
The colors too are optimized. Darker grey information pops off the page more, it’s more important.
A resume is a document for humans communicating with other humans. Make your resume something your proud of, something that says something about you.
I’m sure Caroline’s resume isn’t done yet, but I’m really proud of how it’s shaping up.
One more thing, if you’re looking at Caroline’s resume and thinking that she sounds like the right person for something you’re doing, get in touch with her with the address on the resume. I know that she would love to talk.