In this tutorial, we are going to create a resume template in Photoshop. The resume will include adjustable donut charts, bar charts, icons and for demonstration purposes, a photo. You can replace the photo with a monogram if you don’t want/need to use a photo.

How to make your resume clean looking

Use uniform fonts, sizes, and colors throughout the document. The body and headings font can be different but stick with one font for body and one font for headings.

Use margins so that your text doesn’t run too close to the edges.

Make sure things are aligned.

Setup your document

For this tutorial, I’m going to use﻿ A4 size (2480px x 3508px). If you live in US or Canada you might want to set the document for US Letter (2550px x 3300px). And of course, select white background for your document. Once you have your document setup, let’s add few guides. Go to View -> New Guide -> Vertical and fill in the position 4% and to add the guide to the other side, add 96%. Now you’ll have some margins and you’ll want your content to remain inside these guides.



Sidebar

Specs

• Font: Arial

• Headings: 12pt

• Text (body): 10pt

• Font color: #e4e4e4

Add Sidebar

Add a background for the sidebar by selecting the rectangle tool. Set the color to #3c3c3c and draw a rectangle sized about w:900px x h:3508px. Add another guide (pull it from the rulers (CTRL+R) to the right side of the sidebar, approximately as far from the edge as the left side guide. Add another guide to the main content area about as far out as the right sidebar guide.



Add Photo

Draw a circle and center it to the middle of the sidebar (select the circle and sidebar rectangle -> align center.



Bring in your photo (File -> Place) bring it on top of the circle and make it the same size as the circle. Next right click the photo layer in the layer panel and select ‘Create Clipping Mask’.



Select the circle and photo and group them (CTRL+G) and name the group ‘Photo’.

If you don’t want to have your photo on the resume, you could replace it with a monogram/initials.

Name and Title

Add your name and title under the photo. Select the text tool and set the font to Arial 16pt for the name and Arial 10pt for the title, color #e4e4e4. Of course, you could set these to be whatever you want but those are the values I use on my demo resume. Group the name and title.

Contact Details and Icons

Draw a line under the title. Draw it from guide to guide (sidebar). Next we are going to need some icons, a great source for free icons is flaticon.com. Search the icons you need (phone, email, linkedin, location), select the PSD format and bring them to your document. Resize them and set the color to #e4e4e4. Lay them vertically on top of each other. Draw a circle to put the icon in, double-click on the circle layer to access the Layer Style. Select ‘Stroke’ set the size to 3px, Outside and color #e4e4e4, hit OK. Set the fill to 0%. Duplicate the circle three times (CTRL + J) to give each icon its own circle. Align the circles with the icons with above-shown way. Group each icon with its corresponding circle and name accordingly. Align the grouped icons with each other.

Get the text tool and add contact information to match your icons. Group all the icons and contact information.



Editable Donut Charts

First add the heading ‘Expertise’, select text tool, Arial size 12pt. Copy the line from above (CTRL+J).

Step 1 – Create the donut

Let’s start by creating the donut itself. Draw a circle sized as big as you want your donut to be. Hold down Shift to draw a perfect circle. Then we are going to draw another circle but before you draw, select combine shapes from the top options menu.

The reason why we do it this way rather than directly subtract is that I want to have the circle perfectly in the middle. To align the circles first select the Path Selection Tool (the black arrow) and hold Shift and select both circles. From the top menu’s path alignment drop-down menu choose Horizontal Centers and Vertical Centers. Make sure that align to selection is active on the drop-down menu.

After aligning the circles, we are going to path operations again and this time we are going to choose Exclude Overlapping Shapes, make sure both of the circles are still selected when you select this option. Now we have our donut ready.

Step 2 – Set the percentage

To have an accurate percentage presented on the chart, we are going to use the gradient for this. Double click the donut layer and go to gradient overlay. For the Style select Angle and then click the gradient to edit the gradient. Choose what colors you want to use in your chart, our colors are: #868686 (dark gray), #e4e4e4 (light gray).

Bring the dark gray slider next to the light gray slider just like in the image. From the Location you can see the % that it represents.

Add the text in the middle of the circle. We used Arial, size 10pt. Align text in the middle and group the chart and text. Duplicate 3 times (CTRL + J) and add to their positions.

Bar Charts

Once again start by adding the heading and the line.

We are going to do the bar charts in a same manner as the donut charts. Get your rectangle tool and draw a bar. Ours in 412px x 22px in size, aligned to the sidebars right side guide. The only difference to the donut chart is that we are going to set the Style to Linear and Angle 0. Select the Gradient Overlay layer style and set the colors to #868686 (dark gray), #e4e4e4 (light gray). Add accurate percentages to the bar chart as shown in the donut chart step 2 and hit OK. Duplicate the bar 5 times and align vertically. Adjust the percentages as needed. Add the skills text. Align and group all the bar chart elements and texts.

Design wise the sidebar is the most work but we have finished it now and can move on to the main section of the resume. Group all the sidebar elements and name it sidebar.

Main Section

Specs

• Font: Arial

• Headings: 12pt

• Text (body): 10pt

• Font color: #626462

Professional Profile – Section

Add the heading ‘Professional Profile’ and draw a line (#626462) under the text from guide to guide. Get the text tool and draw a text area for the profile text. Keep the text box within the guides. Add your own text or add filler text by selecting Type -> Paste Lorem Ipsum. To add the filler text, the text box needs to be active. Trim the filler text to appropriate length.

Work Experience – Section

Add the heading ‘Work Experience’ and draw a line or copy the one abode and drag it to its position. On the first line add job title/dates (bold) and second line add Company/Location (italic). Add a text box and fill in your duties/achievements or add filler text. To add the bullet points draw a small circle and duplicate it. You could add the bullet point to the text box by pressing ALT + 0149 but the indent would not be right so I rather add small circles so I can position them better. Position the small circles to represent each bullet point.

Group these 3 elements and name it ‘experience 1’. Duplicate the ‘experience 1’ and position it vertically under the first experience. Do the same for the 3rd experience. Name the groups accordingly.

Education – Section

Lastly, add the heading ‘Education’ and draw a line or copy the one abode and drag it to its position. On the first line add degree and date, second line add School and location and on third add Major and GPA.

Throughout the document you’ll want to use the align tool to make sure everything is nice and tidy.

There you have it, your resume template is ready!