Photos, icons, charts and color: the visual extras and when they help

Every resume template offers extras. A photo in a circle, little icons beside your phone number, skill bars that fill to eighty percent, a timeline, a splash of color across the top. They make the page look finished. They also bring risks, and some of them quietly work against you.

A good rule is to treat each extra as a claim that needs to pay for itself. If it helps a reader understand you faster, it stays. If it only decorates, it is a cost.

Photos

Whether to include a photo depends mostly on the country where the job is. In the US, the UK, Canada, Ireland and Australia, leave it off unless the advert or the application form asks for one. Many employers there prefer not to receive one, since it can invite bias in either direction. In much of Europe, the Middle East and Asia, a photo is common, and a page without one can look unfinished. A few fields, such as acting and modeling, expect one almost everywhere.

A simple approach:

• If the application asks for a photo, include it, in the way they specify.
• If it does not, follow the normal practice where the job is.
• If you are unsure, leave it off.

If you do use one, make it recent, clear and plain. A well lit head and shoulders image with a neutral background and professional clothing works. Avoid selfies, group photos, filters and anything cropped from a social event.

Remember, too, that an image takes space and may not be read well by software, which can disturb the text next to it. Put it where it does not interfere with your name and contact details.

Icons

Small pictures beside contact details are popular. They save a few words and look neat.

They also cause trouble. Some programs read an icon as a strange character, a blank square or nothing at all. In a worse case, they confuse the order of the text around them. A word such as "Phone" or no label at all, with the number in a recognizable format, does the same job without the risk.

If you like the look, test the exported file. Copy the text into a plain editor and see whether the icons turned into rubbish.

Skill bars, dots and charts

This is the extra to be most wary of.

• They show no real information. What does eighty percent in a language mean? Eighty percent of what? Two readers will take two different meanings.
• They are drawn as shapes. Software may skip them, and sometimes the skill name next to them as well.
• They invite doubt. A bar that stops short of full reads as "I am not very good at this" and a full bar looks like a claim that anyone could challenge.

Plain words do better. "Excel (advanced: macros, lookups)" or "German (conversational)" tells the reader something precise and gives you something to talk about in an interview.

Infographics and timelines

A timeline of your career may look striking, but a clean list of roles with dates is quicker to read and easier for software to process. Charts of results, such as a small graph of sales growth, can work when the role is visual or data driven and when the chart is simple, labeled and accurate. Otherwise a sentence with the figure does the job.

If you use any picture of data, add the same facts in words nearby, so nothing depends on the picture alone.

Color

Color is the safest extra, as long as you keep it modest.

• Use one accent color, in headings or a thin line.
• Keep body text dark on a light background.
• Check contrast. A pale color that looks soft on your screen may disappear on another.
• Test in black and white, since many resumes are printed that way.

Avoid solid color blocks behind text, and avoid several competing colors. They draw attention away from the content and can print badly.

Formatting basics covers type, spacing and color together.

A short rule for deciding

For each visual extra, ask three questions.

1. Does it help the reader understand something faster than words would?
2. Will it still work if the file is read as plain text, printed in black and white, or opened on a phone?
3. Would the page lose anything important if I took it away?

If the answers are no, yes and no, remove it.

When a visual resume is right

Designers, illustrators, photographers and people in similar fields often need to show their eye. In that case, make the resume itself an example of your work, and keep a plain version for forms. Put the visual material in a portfolio, where it can be properly seen, and let the resume do its simpler job: giving facts clearly. Two-column and designed templates explains how to test one.