Transcription
In this video, I want to show you how to use Microsoft Word to create a resume. For Microsoft 365 users, I'm also going to show how to use the Resume Assistant to make your resume even better.
So here I am in Microsoft Word. I'm going to go to the File tab and click it. That takes me to the backstage view, and then I'll click New. Here, instead of clicking Blank document, I'm going to search for online templates and type in "resume." Microsoft Word is searching their database, their collection of resume templates. There are some really good-looking resumes here. You can pick the look and feel that you want for your resume. Once you've decided, just click and then click Create. A copy of that resume template has been downloaded to my computer and is in Microsoft Word for me to use.
Notice that, because this is a resume template, Word automatically opened the Resume Assistant. It's here at the right, but that will only happen if you have Microsoft 365 versions of Word. Perhaps in the future, some of the newest versions of Word might also have that feature. If, for some reason, I close this Resume Assistant, I can always get back to it simply by going to the Review tab. Here it is in the upper right corner: Resume Assistant. I can click it, and it takes me right back to where I was.
Obviously, I could click on the different elements of this resume and update the information. It's pretty nice. When you click on an element in the resume, notice that the entire element is selected. So when I click here on "objective," the whole word is selected. Why? Because I may or may not want to keep that word there. What about this paragraph here: "Replace this sentence with your job objective, etc."? If I click there, the entire paragraph is selected, and then I can just start typing.
Now, as you're working on your resume using this template, or any of the other templates that I could have chosen, look what the Resume Assistant can do to help us. I can click "Get Started," and it brings up a form for me to fill out—a really short form. "What role and industry would you like to see examples for?" So here I can click to type my profession or the job that I'm seeking. In this case, I'll choose Instructional Designer. Next, I can click to add an industry, but that's optional. So I could put Business, I could put Education, or I could even just leave it completely blank. Then I click "See Examples."
Notice if you look up here on the Review ribbon, in the Resume group, it says "Resume Assistant," and it has the LinkedIn symbol here as part of the icon. Now, why is that? It's because the Resume Assistant pulls examples of resumes of, in this case, people who are Instructional Designers and are part of the Education industry. So I'm going to click "See Examples," and "No matches found." That's okay. I could remove Education, I could put in Higher Education, and there we go. I got some results. I could also just take that out completely, and I'll get even more results. So these are clips from real resumes that exist on LinkedIn. If I want to see more of this resume, I can click "Read More."
Notice that there's not a way for me to click and drag to highlight this text and copy and paste it. There's good reason for that. It really doesn't make sense for me to copy and paste someone else's resume. The idea here is that it can inspire me to use maybe similar wording, or it might jog my memory about something that I've done that qualifies me for this position. Maybe I would have overlooked some of these points or skills if I hadn't seen this example. When I'm done, I can just click "Read Less," move on to another Instructional Designer, another resume, click "Read More," and if I click "See More Examples," I get even more examples.
Now, what if I want to emphasize certain aspects of Instructional Design? In this case, I can click here where it says "Filter examples by top skills," and I could say, okay, I want to focus on e-learning. So I select e-learning, and this will bring up relevant resumes that mention e-learning. When I'm done with the Resume Assistant, I can click the X to hide it. Then, when I'm done with my resume, of course I could go to the File tab to print this out. I, of course, could save it as a file that I send to people. But if I decide I want to get back in and use the Resume Assistant again, all I have to do is click Review, Resume Assistant, and look, the Resume Assistant remembers the most recent search that I did and brings up those resumes again.
So whether or not you have access to the Resume Assistant, I think Microsoft Word is an excellent tool in which to create a resume. But if you do have the Resume Assistant, what a powerful advantage that gives you—that you can take a look at other resumes from people with similar careers, similar job experience that you have. Thanks for watching. I hope you found this tutorial to be helpful. If you did, please like, follow, and subscribe, and when you do, click the bell so you'll be notified when I post another video. If you'd like to support my channel, consider clicking the Thanks button below the video, or you could support me through my Patreon account or by buying channel merch. You'll see information about those options in the description below the video.
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