Posted on 06/12/2005 9:37:01 PM PDT by maui_hawaii
I was thinking of putting this in breaking news but I know better.
What I don't know is how to tweak photos etc.
Actually, I am making a new resume and I want to spice up the thing a whole lot.
I need to know things like how to put color onto a word doc and how to add pics and particularly how to format the pic itself to how I want it.
I can add a pic but not the way I want it...Specifically (for those who read the WSJ) I want to take my photo and turn it into a WSJ style print (b/w).... and insert it into my doc....
I am sure someone can just do it for me but I am interested in knowing all the neat tricks that can be used....and how I can do it.
I already have made use of a water mark but I want more options...
Another problem is my watermark makes some of the text harder to read. Is there a way to make a text box that over lays the water marks rather than just typing over them?
Any ideas would be useful.
Get Adobe Photoshop and start playing.
As a technical writer, I second Klimeckg's comments.
Get someone who already has those apps and knows how to use them to do your resume for you. Or show you how to do it.
Otherwise, I suspect you would do yourself more harm than good by tarting up your resumé with colored text and excessive illustration. It's quite distracting and marks you as a loose cannon.
One passport-style photograph ought to be plenty, and often people don't even include that.
Use a conservative and readable font, and print it in black ink with a laser printer on high quality white or off-white rag paper.
It's a good idea nowadays to include lots of "buzz" words. Many companies, especially large corporations, will scan the resumés they receive, and run them through an optical character recognition program. Or, you may post the document on-line yourself. In either case, employers will do keyword searches for the skills they are seeking, and throw out any that don't match.
The best advice of all would be for you to spend a great deal of time ensuring that the text contains not even the slightest error in spelling or grammar. Literacy is key for any good job nowadays, and even the most trivial error will often get you pegged as a careless dunce, and your application put in the circular file.
-ccm
Excellent advice...(!)
1. What you say is more important than how you say it.Good luck.
2. Don't include a photo or colored text.
3. Use a standard font and standard format.
4. Double check the punctuation and spelling.
5. Make sure your resume is addressed to the right person and spell that person's name right.
6. In your cover letter, get to the point and give the reader a reason to hire you instead of the other 100 applicants.
7. Do not say "I'm a good learner," or "I'm a team player," or "I'm hoping to develop my skills." Don't exaggerate your experience.
8. Stick to the facts.
9. Don't mumble.
Or go to a Kinko's and rent the machines and software - the Creative Suite, while THE industry strength graphics collection, is a bit steep for someone who just wants to create a simple inline graphic, and also more than total overkill for his needs. Or have Kinko's do it for you, i think they charge $25 for a basic resume package.
If you want to fiddle yourself, look into buying Adobe Elements, if you want to continue doing small, basic edits (scale, crop, red-eye removal, convert to B&W) and some special effects, it's only $99, it's essentially Photoshop without the pro-level CMYK and color tools, among other things. If you have a digital camera, you'll love this program.
(I'm a professional designer/illustrator/art director, going for my ACE in Photoshop this fall (Adobe Certified Expert), and while I love Photoshop with a passion, I hate it when it's recommended in situations where it's simply not suitable. Adobe makes entry level programs like Elements, and most color printers these days ship with a basic imgae editing program, HP's is not bad at all for simple crops and converting to black and white)
(I had to laugh at the MS Publisher comment, every print house/film lab I've worked with or worked for love/hate MS-based documents. They love them for the extra set-up charges they always get to redo the files in Quark, Pagemaker or InDesign, and extra RIP charges, they hate them for plugging up their imagesetters and workflow. If you must, invest in a copy of Acrobat, output your MS docs to PDF, then send them - you'll have much better results.)
***Another problem is my watermark makes some of the text harder to read. Is there a way to make a text box that over lays the water marks rather than just typing over them?***
That's called transparency, and it's only possible in the higher-end pro packages, like InDesign.
But, watermarks under the text is a definite no-no on resumes, as many companies scan resumes in with OCR software these days, and a watermark like that will mean a failed OCR. The KISS principle is always a good idea on a resume (Keep It Simple, Stupid) - unless you're an actor, where you're being hired for your looks, never include a picture - people make spot judgements - maybe you'll remind someone of somebody they don't like!
Another issue is that the eye cannot focus on text and images at the same time - the eyes and the brain have to switch gears to focus on either, so having transparent type over an image is simply confusing to the eye. A good designer can blend text and images, but in this context, it's just confusion, especially since the text you're using is small and dense (lots of it, in other words.)
No images either - I'm an artist, and I havent had an image on my resume since I started - that's what a portfolio is for. *MAYBE* a few small dingbats (small characters, usually found in a dingbat font, like WingDings or Symbol) for a little flavor, but keep it subtle and sparse.
I don't want to lecture, but this is my professional take on resumes, (and I've done a lot of them, when I was starting out they were a good source of income): A resume is simply to tell who you are, where you live, what you can do, where you were trained or went to school, where you've done it, for who, and for how long, and it's talking points for the interview, when the person you're speaking to can ask for you to expand upon anything in the resume.
I created resumes for everyone from retail job applicants to corporate CEO's, and the above held true for all of them. "Spice" is not for the resume, it's for you to display when you meet face to face. I've hired, and been working with people who hire for a long time - trust me, adding photos and watermarks, fancy fonts, and whatever just annoys people. They want to scan it quickly, not sit there and be forced to decipher it. You can splurge a little on some really nice high-end bond, matching envelope, and cover sheet (for the cover letter), and keep the colors for the text subtle, classy, and simple. There's nothing wrong with black - it's the easiest to read. Trust me, the more simple it is, the more professional you look.
But, if you must, if I were you, I'd call Kinko's. They can create a basic resume, add the graphics (if you insist), and print it for you for far less money than you'll be spending on software to accomplish it on your own.
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