Using LaTeX to Make a Stunning Résumé

Create a résumé with LaTeX to stand out from the crowd

I used LaTeX to create my résumé, which helped me get a career at a Fortunte500 tech company. LaTeX helped me nail the simple, yet elegant, style I was looking for when creating my résumé. Before using LaTeX, I spent hours fiddling with templates, and even starting from scratch, in Word and Google Docs. I simply could not achieve the style I was wanting with word processors and I certainly didn’t want to buy a template online and spend even more time trying to tinker with it to make it work with my résumé information.

The problem with buying templates or using a résumé creator that is free is that it makes you as an applicant fade into the crowd. Odds are, another applicant has used that same template, and the details/style may blend together to the person reviewing your résumé.

Also, résumés are often processed automatically and filtered by a machine so that a reviewer’s time is saved only for the ‘best’ applicants in the pool.

How can you win in this situation? How can you stand out? — LaTeX!

Getting Started

To get started, I made an account with Overleaf (free tier available!). Overleaf is a great tool, even on the free tier I was able to not only make my resume, but also use it for some math assignments. I wholeheartedly recommend this service, since it is basically the ‘Google Docs of LaTeX.’

We’ll be leveraging the community templates on Overleaf to start our résumé creation!

Latex Syntax

Overleaf has a syntax guide (link here), however, if you have experience programming then the structure and syntax of LaTeX will be intuitive enough for you to approach without a guide. Also, if you’ve used LaTeX in academia you’re already in good shape to begin creating a résumé.

Here is a YouTube tutorial (link here) that teaches the basics of LaTeX if you prefer a visual walkthrough.