Free Professional Resume Templates

Yes! A resume’s appearance plays a significant role in impressing an employer, so a good resume template can help you land a job. Plus, poor alignment or excessive graphics can hinder an ATS program from scanning your resume correctly and can turn prospective employers away instantly.

A high-quality, clean resume template lets you add your content and make adjustments without worrying about spacing, tabs and other common issues. Our Resume Builder offers great resume templates appropriate for various industries and companies you can check out.

Yes, many of the resume templates listed above are free. Download and fill them out as you like.

That said, using a free downloadable template comes with limitations. For the full experience, including our range of premium templates and special features, you’ll want to sign up for our Resume Builder.

Using a resume template is easy! When you download a template, it is fully editable in the program of your choice. Save the template as a Word doc if you’d like to edit it in Microsoft Word, as a PDF if you plan to use Adobe Acrobat or as a Google Doc if that’s your preference.

Alternatively, you could import a template into a resume builder. The great thing about using a resume builder is that you’ll get auto-generated text to add to your professional summary, work experience, skills and education sections when you share a bit about yourself. Not only does this save time, but you can also easily customize and personalize the resume without losing your formatting.

You choose the right sample resume template by considering your industry and employer. If you’re applying for a job as a librarian or claims adjuster, for instance, opt for simple resume templates. But, if you’re applying for a role as a hairstylist, then our creative or modern resume templates might suit your needs.

Also, select a resume design that makes sense for your employment history and qualifications. For example, if you lack experience, choose a one-page resume template that plays up your skills and education while balancing out extra white space, such as our basic and simple resume templates.

Conversely, if you have a lot of experience, pick a resume sample that helps you showcase your accomplishments without much extra text.

The best template for a resume is one that aligns with your industry, matches your job title and speaks to where you are in your career.

A good template for a resume should also match your cover letter template. So, for example, if you are an entry-level job seeker looking for work as a marketing associate in the art industry, you might choose one of our creative or modern resume templates.

But if you are a job candidate with 10 or more years of experience as a legal aide, our simple resume templates would be ideal. When in doubt, our MS Word templates work well for most job applicants.

You can find a resume template to download for free on Resume Now. Simply scroll up to see our free downloadable template options.

Regardless of your job title, industry and experience, we have a resume template that is downloadable for you.

A resume should rarely go back further than 10 or 15 years. Employers will always be more interested in your recent career experience. Anything from earlier in your career that you want to highlight can be represented in a different resume section, like skills or accomplishments.

A resume should generally be no more than one page in length. Any more than that and prospective employers could lose interest.

Use a one-page resume template to focus on your most valuable skills, achievements and work experience. By displaying your top credentials, you’ll intrigue hiring managers and leave them wanting to learn more about you in an interview.

That said, if you have more than 15 years of experience and have many qualifications to display, then a two-page resume or a CV is acceptable.

For most job seekers, the best resume format for 2024 is a chronological resume. Hiring managers love chronological resumes because they put work experience front and center. Within seconds, they can see your top accomplishments at your previous jobs.

Also, the best resume templates are clean resume templates. Skip those with heavy graphics, offbeat fonts and many different colors. Your resume has to pass the ATS and be easy for a recruiter or hiring manager to read. So, go for simple lines, fluid organization and standard fonts.

1. Work experience that’s relevant to the employer. Hiring managers are always looking for a good reason to call you in for an interview, and showcasing your work history is the best way to do that. Make sure to drive home your quantifiable achievements in easy-to-digest bullet points.
2. A logical organization that’s easily scannable. Recruiters only spend a few seconds looking at a resume, so you want to make yours well-organized and easy to understand at a glance. Additionally, you should make an ATS-friendly resume so your document can be easily scanned by employer screening software.
3. Proper spelling and punctuation. This may seem minor compared to the other two factors, but the truth is many hiring managers immediately toss out applications that are riddled with errors.

A functional or skills-based resume is ideal for emphasizing your skills, especially if you have gaps in your employment history or are changing careers. This template focuses on your abilities rather than chronological work experience.

This template allows you to highlight both soft skills (like teamwork and problem-solving) and hard skills (such as technical proficiencies). You can go a step further by grouping your skills into categories like communication skills, leadership abilities and technical expertise.