Color Me Convinced
Five resume branding tips to dye for to land ideal work
Let’s face it. Black and white in our colorful digital age is boring, basic and blah. We live in a visual world with our eyes as the primary portal for our experiences.
Color not only impacts interest but memory and attention as well, according to recent research. Color ads, for example, gain 42% more readership than black and white counterparts. And color increases brand recognition by 80%.
(Read more colorful facts here).
The same is true for your resume. Today, career documents are read on digital devices rather than heavy-weight paper. So, it is important to not only nail your content but the viewer experience as well.
Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash
Why color?
Your career documents are marketing collateral. Gone are the days that your resume is a historical catalog of your employment history. The modern job search requires you to be memorable and stand out in today’s competitive market. Personal branding is how you do it.
Your brand.
Your personal brand is your unique value promise. It’s what you bring to the table that no one else does.
If you think of yourself as a solution-focused business, your brand is your promise of the value that you deliver when someone “buys” your services. Your resume is selling just that, YOU:
What sets you apart from the pack,
The benefits you bring to the table and
How you uniquely solve a company’s needs or problems.
You do this primarily through high-impact content and color, which creates a lasting memory of you. Color is the enhancement to your brand (and resume) not the main event.
Before you bust out the colors of the rainbow, consider five imperatives as you decide how to portray your brand through color:
Your Direction
Color Scheme
Simplicity
Consistency
Meaning
Your direction.
Your job target matters. Not only for the direction of your job search but for your resume’s color choice.
Your industry, for example, is an important consideration. If you are targeting more formal industries like banking or finance, select conservative colors like gray or navy. If you are in a creative field or startup, oranges and teals are more widely accepted.
While it is important to keep your destination in mind, the purpose of adding color is to reflect you in that field, not merely mirror back your dream company’s brand. Keep industry standards in tandem with what showcases your skill set best.
Photo by Carissa Weiser on Unsplash
Color scheme.
The standard colors in Microsoft Word are overused and well, standard. You need a color palette that reflects the complexity of who you are and what is modern now.
Use palette picking tools to help choose a color scheme for your resume. I recommend one primary color and one accent color. Your text body will always be black.
Check out one of these color palette resources:
Khroma - http://khroma.co
Color Hunt - https://colorhunt.co
Coolers - https://coolors.co
When you find a color you like, use the eyedropper in Microsoft Word under “More Colors” to grab the hue and add it to the palette for the document.
Photo by Helena Hertz on Unsplash
Simplicity.
Remember content is still king. Color enhances your candidacy; it shouldn’t detract from it. Your choice of format and color is the visual positioning of your experience that differentiates you from the competition and sells your brand.
Use color in Microsoft Word functions like shading, borders and even headings and subheadings as appropriate.
When in doubt, keep it simple. Less is more.
Consistency.
Brand recognition requires consistency. Ensure your career documents are uniform in color and format creating a seamless brand experience. Your cover letter and resume should have the same header. Your LinkedIn cover photo then will reflect the same color choices of your career documents to deliver the same on-brand message of YOU!
Meaning.
Color is about the visual experience, but it has meaning, too. Choose how you represent your brand wisely. Susan Chritton’s Personal Branding For Dummies lists color meanings and attributes. Here are a few from her list as you consider your color(s):
Blue: Intelligence, wisdom, integrity, leadership, authority, truth, peace, loyalty, reliability, confidence, hope, clarity, communication, imagination, calming
Teal: Calming, confidence building, empathy, serenity, wisdom
Green: Growth, rebirth, nature, optimism, spring, change, relaxation, youth, luck, healing, environment, prosperity, safety
Yellow: Sunshine, joy, warmth, happiness, intellect, caution, warning, vision, creativity, light, self-motivation, independence
Orange: Energy, optimism, enthusiasm, determination, encouragement, humor, informality, success, competition, force, productivity, strength, vitality with endurance
Red: Power, attention, love, activity, potency, energy, desire, action, passion, determination, courage, vitality, motivation, playfulness, enthusiasm
Brown: Solid, grounded, earthy, connected to nature, orderly, plain, not luxurious
Gray: Elegant, classic, neutrality, well-established
While black-and-white as a pair is out, white space is in. The lack of it creates a wall of text which leads to less readership and interview invitations. Write tight and let your text breathe within the most important color of all.