Resume template sites provide hundreds of templates with unique designs to stand out.
Do fancy designs make the difference between getting to the interview stage or rejected?
No, not for Scrum Masters.
It is true: Your template can make a difference, and it will help to get recognized.
Not by fancy designs, but by supporting the content of your Scrum Master resume for your audience.
Remember Your Audience
In some earlier articles, I mentioned that you need to write your Scrum Master resume for people who decide to get to the next stage of the hiring process.
Those people are your audience: The recruiter and the hiring manager.
Now that you know who your audience is, you need to know how they read your resume.
The recruiter scans your resume within 10-30 seconds and decides to push your resume to the next stage or reject your whole application.
The hiring manager is the person who decides to hire you or not. Some hiring managers still print your resume for preparing for the interview with you. Keep that in mind, when choosing a template for your Scrum Master resume.
With your resume, you need to help the recruiter to recognize you as a qualified candidate in a few seconds. You also want the hiring manager to understand that you are their next Scrum Master.
Your Scrum Master resume template needs to support both: The recruiter and the hiring manager.
Template Layout Guidelines
Basic Guidelines
A good template is easy to read. Our natural reading direction is from left to right and top to bottom like we read books. The same principle applies to your resume.
To be more precise, the recruiter is not reading your resume. The recruiter scans your resume.
The same applies to you when you read articles on your mobile phone. More often than not, you first scan through the article to see if it is worth reading the article in depth.
The recruiter is doing the same. During the resume screening, the recruiter scans your Scrum Master resume and decides if it is worth to have a more in-depth look.
That means you need to put important information first and less important details towards the end.
Colors and bolding can draw attention. Use both of these strategically to draw the reader’s attention to the details you like to stand out.
Google for “resume template” and you get an endless list of resume templates. We will have a look at the two most popular resume templates with their advantages and disadvantages:
Top-Down Template
The top-down resume template supports the natural reading direction from left to right and top to bottom.
Recruiters and hiring managers are familiar with this layout.
It works well for multi-page resumes and allows an easy scan for crucial information.
Advice: Use a top-down template for your Scrum Master resume, and you are fine.
Two-Column Template
The idea behind the two-column template is to maximize the information on one page. However, it isn’t easy to read as it breaks the natural reading direction.
Recruiters and hiring managers have a hard time to find key information about you. Resumes with this kind of layout make it difficult to scan in 10-30 seconds.
Do not use a two-column resume template when applying for a Scrum Master position.
Download the Scrum Master Resume Template
I created a Scrum Master resume template that allows recruiters and hiring managers to scan your resume within 10-30 seconds. It is available as a Word document and Google document.
Use this template to get noticed by recruiters.
Enter your details to get access to the Scrum Master Resume Template 👇
