Resume Icons: Make Your Resume Elegant and Effective

Resume icons. This is the sixth lesson of our Perfect Resume Creation: Ultimate Course. If you would like to get through the whole course – follow the link and subscribe.

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1. Important Tips to Create Effective Resume Icons
2. Resume Icons Makers
3. How to Make Cool Resume Icons
4. Examples of Resume Icons
5. Where and How to Use Resume Icons
6. Free Contact Icons for a Resume
7. Conclusion

Have you come across an interesting vacancy? If so, has your resume been updated? Are you sure it will be able to present your skills effectively to stand out from the crowd of applicants?

Many applicants of creative professions prefer a non-standard approach to create the resume. Examples of non-standard resumes are video resumes, presentation resumes, or the CVs with infographics and resume icons. According to some recruitment agencies, a creative CV increases the chances of a candidate to make a good impression on the recruiter.

An icon is the most simplified image of an object or action. It symbolizes some objects or actions, which speeds up the process of perceiving the information. Icons are used to indicate sections of the site, interface buttons, and to emphasize some particular content. Icons should be memorable, clear and easy to read.

A resume icon is an interesting and understandable way to present information, such as contact info, skills, social media accounts, etc. Moreover, icons have another undeniable advantage over the alphabet—the absence of a language barrier. Why is it worth using? Studies have shown that people can recall 65% of the visual content that they see almost three days later. In comparison to about 10% of the written content three days after it is read.

Today we will stop on the topic of a resume icon and check out how to make an effective one and where to use it in the resume to impress your employer.

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Important Tips to Create Effective Resume Icons

Simple and lively images in your resume help to get the point of each section quickly and effectively.

Ok, let’s find out when using an icon is a good idea.

• Instead of the text, when there is not much space for letters or you need to buy time.
• To save space on low-resolution screens, often in applications. Here it is important to use clear icons that convey the idea properly.
• As beacons in the text. Even a well-structured text, with small paragraphs and subheadings, will benefit from adding thematic icons in key places. The reader's eye will catch the illustration and the text that it accompanies.
• For better perception of the information. We remember images better than text. This technique is used to quickly cause associations.

Resume icons make your resume modern and effective, but it is important to understand that filling your CV with a lot of icons is not a good idea.

Make sure the resume icons you choose match the style of your entire resume.

Keep the color balance—the resume icons should be neutral and minimal. With a large number of graphic elements, you need to keep the overall resume design super-professional.

Minimalism is your best friend. The more details you will add to the icon, the lower its recognition is. The icon should be something like a simple symbol—quite clear and understandable.

Create resume icons without unnecessary text. It is quite difficult to read tiny text, and the goal of the icon is to substitute the text.

Icons fit into modern trends of web design: simplicity and minimalism. Therefore, you can find a lot of resources where you can get creative resume icons. They can be downloaded for free on stock services, you can buy a ready-made set or individual icons, or you can hire a designer to craft unique icons.

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Resume Icons Makers

The web offers both free and paid sources with resume icons. I will give a few examples below.

Zety Resume Builder

You will find 100+ resume icons for your personal information section. Default, Social, and Other blocks are available. Moreover, you can either change or rearrange the resume sections with a simple drag and drop feature.

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Resume Build

The service allows you to create a professional resume that will work for a range of positions. HR will be so impressed with your resume and an icon set that they may even ask how you built it.

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Enhancv

The tool helps people to highlight their achievements, attitude, and personality, so they can tell their story with confidence. Add a few creative resume icons to stand out from other applicants.

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Visme

Visme offers a large cache of free images, icons and templates, and even more features. It is also nice for people who might want to use it for other projects, such as creating an interview portfolio.

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Icons8.com

Keep your resume project clean and consistent with nearly complete icon coverage for every style. Each icon style has its own pixel-perfect size to ensure you are covered. You can download icons in any common format, including embeddable SVG-sprite and icon-font.

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How to Make Cool Resume Icons in Adobe Illustrator

How to create a resume icon depends on your design experience. If you are a newbie in this area, it is better for you to hire a graphic designer or use online services to choose your perfect resume icon.

If you still have some skills of Adobe Illustrator CC, here is a short tutorial on how to create a simple camera icon you can use in a resume or any other digital project.

Set up the project

Run Adobe Illustrator and click the Create new button. Navigate to the Web tab and enter the size on the right pane. Choose the square format when you work on the icon.

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Start drawing basic shapes

First of all, draw the body of your camera icon.

Choose the Rectangle tool in the Tools panel on the left. Click and drag a rectangle in the center area.

Draw the second smaller rectangle as shown in the picture.

To add the flash, click and hold the Rectangle tool to access other shapes and select the Ellipse tool. Click and drag a circle, draw a perfect circle, and release your cursor when you get a suitable size.

Select the Ellipse tool and hover over the larger rectangle until the word center appears. Press Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) and drag a circle drawn from the center. Draw a smaller circle off to the side and drop the smaller circle in place.

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Combine shapes

Now you can merge the rectangle shapes.

Press V for the Selection tool. Click the large rectangle, press Shift and click the small rectangle to select both. Select the Shape Builder tool and drag a line connecting both rectangles as shown.

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Do not forget about color

Press V to switch to the Selection tool. With the camera body selected, click the Fill Color swatch below Appearance in the Properties panel. Repeat the same for other details of the icon.

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Round the shape corners

Select the camera body. Press A to switch to the Direct Selection tool, and drag a rounded corner widget to round all the corners at once.

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Save for web output

Choose File > Save. Give your project a unique name and save it in the Adobe Illustrator (AI) format. You can edit this file in Illustrator anytime.

Click here to get more details for each step described.

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Examples of Resume Icons

Here are a few examples of how you can use various resume icons in the resume and web design.

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Where and How to Use Resume Icons

Resume icons makers offer a huge number of various icons. Here you should be careful not to overload your resume with too many icons.

Let’s see where it is appropriate to add an icon to make your resume look elegant and stylish.

• Personal information block. As you have already noticed, you can go ahead and choose the proper icon for your phone number, email address, and website.
• Social media profiles. Accompany your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn profiles with appropriate icons.
• Add icons to the section headers. Your experience, languages, skills, education, etc. blocks will look creative in your add the appropriate topical icons.
• Hobbies and interests. Choose the right icons to symbolize your hobbies like traveling, music, cars, food, etc.

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Free Contact Icons for a Resume

Check out the popular services to get free resume icons. Here you can find phone and email icons for resume and many other interesting options.

Icons8

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Freepik.com

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Flaticon.com

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The Noun Project

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Iconmonstr

If your goal is to obtain premium icon designs at affordable prices, I would like to draw your attention to TemplateMonster marketplaces and their creative icon sets. Using an icon collection throughout your project will give it a professional look and feel.

And here are a few examples of thematic icon sets.

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Conclusion

Resume icons in web design are simple, concise and expressive. With their help, it is easy to draw the reader’s attention to any section of the page or convey important information. Use resume icons to highlight your personal information and resume sections, like Experience, Educations, and Skillset.

Remember, your resume icons should match the overall concept of design and not contradict the color scheme and style of the document. Do not hesitate to use any resume icon builder to speed up the process of creating your professional resume. Make your visually appealing resume with a few clicks!

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