Is it OK to use the résumé templates in MS Word or Works?
There are advantages and disadvantages to using résumé templates. The main advantage is that they are easy to use and some even present a nice appearance…at first glance when reviewing them in the native application. Now for the disadvantages. Employers often see thousands of résumés a week and, odds are, they’ll see more than one with the same template. There goes the “uniqueness” of your résumé. Additionally, some templates cause problems for copiers and scanners, and while one might assume most employers have the most current versions of MS Word or Works or their computers, this is not always the case, and this lack of compatibility can cause significant problems for someone attempting to open your document. With that in mind, we suggest simply opening your word processing program and starting with a blank document. On a related note, if submitting your résumé electronically in an e-mail as a PDF, you might want to add a simple link to a PDF reader download page in the unlikely ev