Traditional Resume Templates

What is a traditional template resume?

There are tons of different types of resumes, but traditional or classic resumes are most commonly used. It's usually up to a two-page document with a brief description of your work experience, strengths, achievements, and educational background. This type of business document has a simple layout without flashy graphical elements and colors and is easy to be read and scanned by recruiters. It only includes texts highlighting your key achievements.

As a job-seeker, you can no longer create resumes for human eyes alone. While your resume should still look great to recruiters and employers, it first has to pass the initial screening done by the ATS. Because of its simplicity, a traditional resume will pass any Applicant Tracking System scanning process.

You can create such a resume by using a traditional resume template in a resume builder.

When to use a traditional template resume?

The majority of recruiters and employers are used to classic-looking resumes. In some cases, the hiring manager will expect you to submit a traditional resume. These resume formats are popular with job seekers applying for work in conservative workplaces, like law firms or other corporate fields, such as finance or the nonprofit world. The basic design of traditional resumes makes them look more business-appropriate and helps you appear straight-laced and professional.

As much as your resume should present your abilities and professional experience, its design should show you’ve researched your prospective employer’s company culture. When applying to more conventional companies, you should match their corporate culture with your resume. The traditional template is likely to help your chances of being hired by such companies.

When writing a resume, focus on including an uncomplicated professional summary, work history, skills, and education sections. Traditional resume layout is simple, but it can be even more powerful when you put in additional qualifications and achievements. Don't compromise with the information in your resume’s simple look.

What makes a traditional template resume

The traditional resume is with a simple layout and follows a strict format, generally beginning with a header, title, and contact details. The document continues with your professional summary, followed by your professional work history, and finishes with your educational information and relevant skill sets.

• Traditional resume templates don't use any colors except some shades of black and gray. It's been proven to be effective because it keeps recruiters focused on the content of your resume instead of how it looks.
• Times New Roman is widely considered the most classic and traditional font to use in this template. The classical resume template by Enhancv's Resume Builder conveys professionalism by using Lato as a primary font in different sizes and styles.
• To ensure a better reading experience, use a lot of white space around all objects and sections. That also allows you to emphasize crucial details easily.
• The background in the classic-looking resume is always clear. Keep the document free from graphics, adhere to the corporate style.
• The classic resume template follows a traditional formatting structure that’s the best fit for jobs in professional environments. And it uses headings, subheadings, bolded words, plus bullet points to keep all the information organized.
• The header section sits at the top of the page to display your most important contact details. That includes your full name, job title, phone number, address, etc.
• We placed the summary section below the header to help you market yourself and highlight your best qualities.
• Experience and education are listed in reverse-chronological format with precise dates and locations. That helps recruiters notice your growth and career progress in a well-structured fashion.
• Accomplishments and skills are featured to allow you to stand out from the crowd by highlighting your unique qualities and relevant job history.
• The tone of voice you use should be highly professional, serious, and straightforward. Your message needs to come across as intelligent, critical, and focused.
• Including a photo on your traditional resume is a question that depends on the country in which you are applying to work. When in doubt, we suggest leaving out photos unless they directly ask for one as part of your application.

Tips to build the best traditional resume:

Design

Traditional resume templates have a simple design—less color and graphics or visual elements. A black-and-white business document with simple headers and a straightforward layout. The simple styling is to outline your experience, education, and outstanding skills.

A lot of white space around all objects and sections achieves visual separations of sections. The design follows strict business formatting and structure with bold headlines to ensure good readability.

Font

Choosing the right font for your traditional resume is very important. You'll never go wrong with Lato or Oswald.

Colors

Traditional resumes don't use any colors, which is considered distracting and unprofessional. However, using darker colors like navy blue or gray in a classic-looking resume is acceptable. A good suggestion is to personalize your resume for the company you're applying to by using their corporate colors.

Select the best layout

Working with already made traditional templates for your resume will help you to keep the design clean and the formatting business-appropriate. The header of your resume must contain your name, your contact information, and links to your business website or profile on LinkedIn. Place your headshot only if specifically mentioned in the job application.

Adding a summary or profile section to your resume will help you present yourself to your future employer. This section of your resume should include a summary of your previous experience, skills, and future goals related to a specific job opening. Use a highly professional, serious, and straightforward tone of voice. Keep your summary short, but, at the same time, try to emphasize your best qualities sought after by recruiters.

The following section to include on your traditional resume is your work history, which should be clear and concise yet descriptive.

The prospective employer should know your responsibilities, what skills you have developed, where your strengths lie, and what you've achieved. Begin each item by stating the company name, location, dates, and job title.

List your experiences in chronological order by starting with the most current position. Use bullet points to describe your experience using concise statements led by strong action verbs, representing your responsibilities and accomplishments concerning the job itself.

The traditional resume template isn't an eye-catching document. That's why the information you write must be as informative as possible and emphasize your professionalism and abilities. It's advisable to add achievements, accomplishments, or awards sections to your resume. Showcasing your strengths and talents can help you land the job and serve as an indicator to an employer that you have a strong work ethic or skill set.

Your traditional resume will need to include an education section. There's some basic information that should be included within this section, like the name of the school, graduation year, degree, and major field or department of study.

Listing your education can be essential for advancing into the next phase of the hiring process. Consider listing your certifications separately on your resume. Another benefit is that certifications may be the key to beating the ATS and making your resume more attractive than the competition.

As the last section on your resume, you can list with bullet points your relevant skills set. In this classical-based resume formatting, it’s not advisable to include any different or creative information if it’s not specifically mentioned in the job description. Traditional resumes should follow a pretty strict structure—there’s not much room to improvise here.

Most resumes should be a maximum of two pages long, a standard length to fit your summary, work history, experience, and skills.

In a traditional resume, you should keep your text in one column. Your resume can be one page if you have fewer than ten years of relevant work experience. However, if you are more experienced in your industry, you can make a two-page resume to elaborate on that experience and showcase all of your job skills and qualifications.