Creative Resumes Get Fewer Interviews — According to Research

While the media loves to feature stories about creative resumes that land dream jobs for people, a group of researchers have shown that creative resumes don’t work.

At least not as well as more traditional resumes.

The Study

The researchers had a gender-balanced group of 45 professionals (half external recruiters and half human resources professionals) and 45 students read twelve resumes. The applicants were non-creative types for a non-creative job.

The researchers created three resumes for each applicant. The content was identical. The aesthetics differed.

Resume #1 was a formal resume on white paper.

Resume #2 was identical to Resume #1 except it was on colored paper.

Resume #3 incorporated graphic design elements similar to an infographic.

The Findings

This chart shows how the readers evaluated the resumes:

Resume Type Reject Maybe Interview

Creative 42% 31% 27%

Colored Paper 32% 36% 32%

White Paper 26% 33% 41%

As you can see, only 27% of the creative resumes made it into the “Interview” pile while 41% of the traditional resumes on white paper got the nod. Resumes on colored paper didn’t fare well either.

Can we extrapolate the results of one study to the whole world? No, but I would heed these results and use a traditional resume.

What If You’re a Creative?

I would want to see research results for creatives in order to be sure.

I suggest a traditional resume accompanied by a creative portfolio. That makes it easy for a reader to scan the resume for relevant information and evaluate an applicant’s creative abilities.

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