Professional Documents

Whether you’re putting together a resume for the first time, updating your LinkedIn profile, or developing a professional portfolio, effective design can help you stand out from the crowd. This page highlights tools, tips, and tricks for taking your professional documents to the next level. You’ll also find links to UW–Madison career services that you can use to get even more help!

Resumes and CVs

Resumes are documents designed to highlight your qualifications for a job or other opportunity. All resumes should include basic information like your name, contact info, and address. The additional information you include will depend on the requirements of the position. For example, a resume might summarize your professional history, education, community service, technical skills, or other relevant experience.

With resumes, less is more! In the US, resumes are expected to be one page. Reviewers should be able to quickly skim through the document and get the information they need. That means using a simple font and a reasonable font size—no smaller than 10pt. Also, consider what information is the most important. Use design cues like color, size, alignment, and bolding to direct the viewer’s eye.

A curriculum vitae (or CV) includes much of the same information as a resume. But unlike a resume, a CV documents the full history of your work, education, service, and other achievements — usually, for academic purposes. There’s no set limit for the length of a CV, but that doesn’t mean you should wax poetic! The person reading your CV should be able to get a comprehensive, succinct overview of your experiences up to now. Because of the length of a CV, make sure you’ve clearly organized the document into labeled sections with the most important information toward the top. The same design strategies mentioned above also apply.

Professional Websites

A website can provide a dynamic and visually appealing platform for communicating your qualifications to potential employers. In light of this, professional websites and digital CVs or resumes are becoming more common. A good digital CV or resume should include all of the same information as its PDF or printed counterpart. But you’ll also want to consider web-specific capabilities, such as hyperlinks, page menus, images, and user interaction.

Professional websites are especially useful for individuals working in website development, graphic design, visual arts, video production, or other media fields. These professionals would likely create a portfolio site. A portfolio site allows the creator to display their own work, attract clients, network, and apply for jobs or graduate school. Regardless of the medium, it places the work at the center of the site’s structure and design. Some portfolio sites also include a personal blog, but most use a gallery-style layout. Portfolios should be easy to navigate and contain a brief description of each piece, with an artist’s or professional statement. It is important to consider whether an online portfolio is intended to be stand-alone or paired with a professional website.

Visit our web-based project page for more tips and tricks.

Other Professional Documents

Business cards are primarily a quick and easy way to distribute professional contact information. But a well-designed business card can also give someone a sense of your professional brand and the field of work you’re in — through a logo, color, images, or other elements. A business card is what a new connection will remember you by, and you can use design principles to leave a good impression.

Visit our Branding/Logos project page for more tips and tricks.

Many different software programs can be used to create professional documents. Below is a list of the software that we recommend for professional documents. They are organized by category. We put the software in order from easiest to use near the top to most difficult near the bottom. We recommend using software you know well or learning it well enough to establish an easy workflow so that you can spend less time troubleshooting and more time on your project. Check out our Software Support page for links to tutorials for all of these programs.

Resumes and CVs

Microsoft Word: This word processing program is used to create text-based documents that can incorporate images and other design elements. We recommend this for CVs, but it can be used for resumes as well, though the alignment tools can be frustrating for resumes. Microsoft Word is free for all UW–Madison students, faculty, and staff via UW–Madison’s Office 365. It is also available via the UW–Madison computer labs, both in the lab and for checkout.

Canva: This online graphic design platform is a great place to make visually stunning resumes and CVs. While Canva has paid features, you can typically make all your documents with a free account. This platform also comes with a built-in database of free images and icons and allows you to upload your own content. Your files are saved to your online account and kept on the Canva server. You can download the files in multiple formats depending on the project.

Adobe Express: This cloud-based media creation application makes it easy to create resumes. UW–Madison students, faculty, and staff have premium access to Adobe Express via your free UW–Madison Adobe ID. This software is web-based and can be accessed from most browsers.

Adobe InDesign: This program is a document creator, typically used to produce print materials, and it works well for visually complex resumes and CVs. This program is available to UW–Madison students, faculty, and staff via the UW–Madison computer labs, both in the lab and for checkout, and is available for both Windows and Mac computers.

Portfolio Software

Microsoft Sway: This unique web-based program features a single-page website layout with an outline structure of sections and subsections. With Sway, you can create interactive portfolios that combine text, images, video, and audio on a single page. Sway designers can choose how viewers navigate the project: scrolling from top to bottom, from left to right, or in a slideshow style. Microsoft Sway is available for free to all UW–Madison students, faculty, and staff via UW–Madison’s Office 365.

Google Sites: This online tool allows users to create websites. It offers several templates and limited customization compared to professional website-building tools such as WordPress or Wix. However, it requires very little prior knowledge about website building and allows for collaboration. Google Sites is free to all UW–Madison students, faculty, and staff via the UW–Madison Google Workspace for Education (formerly G Suite). It is also easy to transfer ownership from your UW account to a personal account if you leave UW.

With resumes, less is more! In the US, resumes are expected to be one page. Reviewers should be able to quickly skim through the document and get the information they need. That means using a simple font and a reasonable font size—no smaller than 10pt. Also, consider what information is the most important. Use design cues like color, size, alignment, and bolding to direct the viewer’s eye.

There’s no set limit for the length of a CV, but that doesn’t mean you should wax poetic! The person reading your CV should be able to get a comprehensive, succinct overview of your experiences up to now. Because of the length of a CV, make sure you’ve clearly organized the document into labeled sections with the most important information toward the top. The same design strategies mentioned above also apply.

For CVs and resumes, it may not be appropriate to include a professional photograph of yourself. In most companies in the US, photographs are not recommended due to issues with resume screening software and concerns about hiring bias. If you are applying for a job in another country or in a design-oriented field, a photograph may be appropriate.

Note: In the US, it is uncommon to include photographs on CVs and Resumes because many companies use programs to read these documents and pull out relevant information.