Alright, let me tell you about the time I spent three weeks straight tweaking my resume in Microsoft Word back in 2019 – right after my layoff from a retail management job. I remember sitting at my kitchen table (which was really just a $25 Ikea side table with coffee ring stains) thinking surely the built-in Word templates would be enough. Oh man, was I wrong.
See, I’d downloaded this sleek "Modern Chronological" template – all blue accents and diagonal lines – and poured my soul into it. Sent it out to 23 jobs. Crickets. Turns out, half those fancy Word layouts get butchered by applicant tracking systems (ATS). Learned that the hard way when a hiring manager friend finally told me my resume looked like alphabet soup on her end. (Moral of the story: Just because it looks cool on your MacBook doesn’t mean robots can read it.)
Here’s what actually worked after my trial-and-error phase:
-
Microsoft’s Own Basics: Sounds obvious, but their "Simple" and "Essential" templates (File > New > search "resume") are like the Toyota Camry of resumes – boring but reliable. Formatted cleanly for ATS. Pro tip: Delete the cheesy stock photos of smiling business people they include.
-
The Google Docs Hack: Not technically Word, but free and lifesaving. I’d download a Google Docs template I liked (their "Swiss" style is gold), then copy-paste the whole thing into Word. Works 90% of the time if you’re married to Word like I was.
-
Resume Genius’s Secret Trove: Someone at a Starbucks job hunt meetup told me about resumegenius.com/resume-templates – they’ve got 15+ Word docs that don’t look like everyone else’s. The "Functional" one helped me pivot industries by highlighting skills over dates during my unemployment gap.
Watch out for the "Overused Classics" though. That default blue sidebar template everyone uses? I once sat on a hiring panel where three candidates had identical layouts. Felt like we were grading twins. Mix it up with subtle color changes (navy instead of royal blue) or different header placements.
One Friday night at 11 PM (post-wine, pre-regret), I tried Frankensteining two templates together – a Harvard Career Services table format with columns from a TechResume.io design. Woke up to a jumbled mess of text boxes. Lesson learned: Stick to single-column layouts unless you’re a Word wizard.
Here’s the real talk: The template matters less than you think. What does matter? Customizing the heck out of it. I keep a "master resume" in Word with every possible bullet point (even my short-lived cupcake business from 2016), then trim it down per job. Saves hours compared to starting fresh each time.
Oh! And if you’re printing it at the library or FedEx Office? Always test print a page first. The amount of times my gorgeous header turned out neon green on their printers… (Now I stick to classic black/white with gray accents. Thrilling, I know.)
At the end of the day, your resume’s just the delivery method for your story. My current job (which I love) came from a resume I made in 20 minutes using Word’s "Basic Resume" template – but it worked because I’d finally learned to focus on what I said instead of how pretty it looked. Still keep that crumpled Starbucks-napkin draft in my desk drawer as a reminder.
Go grab a template (the Harvard ones are shockingly good), throw on a true crime podcast, and start tailoring. You’ve got this – and hey, if all else fails? There’s always the 2 AM Target run for more resume paper. Been there too.