by Amanda Rioux

Designing resumes. It’s a process many of us are familiar with: we even teach the process to our students. While we may have an idea of what a resume should include, are we really taking into consideration what potential employers want to see?

This is a question Randazzo explores in “A Framework for Resume Decisions: Comparing Applicants’ and Employer’s Reasons” (Randazzo 2020).

In terms of resume design, Randazzo discusses the importance of rhetorical awareness in making resume design decisions, determining what relevant information to include in a resume. In Business Communication, we teach the unfortunately-titled HATS/CRAP acronym:Headings, Access, Typography, Space; Contrast,Repetition, Alignment, Proximity. These are good skills to have when it comes to the visual design portion of resume-building, but what about the information we teach students to include? Do we consider what employers hope to see?

When we focus too much on the design concepts and specifics–what Randazzo calls the “formal features”–we “can have trouble adapting to novel and contemporary contexts” (412). Randazzo warns that these “formal features have a limit to their usefulness;” therefor the approach to resume construction must broaden beyond these formal features.

As Randazzo states, gaps appear in resume creation when educators and students place too much focus on visual design; rather “addressing these gaps…can help educators and students make more nuanced, adaptive, and empowered decisions” (410). To help close these gaps, Randazzo conducted a study weighing what students and educators expect to put into resume construction versus what employers want to see in resumes of potential hires. Potential employers, Randazzo tells us, “use more holistic and complex criteria than what happens at the level of [formal features]” in resume design (412).

To better visualize how to determine what to include in a resume, Randazzo creates a “decision tree” consisting of a series of  yes/no questions in a pattern students and educators can follow. The branches of the decision tree are organized by relevancy; value; recency; and personality. This type of visual can help students and educators make appropriate decisions in resume construction which will reflect what potential employers expect to see.

Figure 1 shows Randazzo’s “decision tree” for resume-building

Despite this approach to resume design, Randazzo concludes that, all too often, those formal features of resume design still take center-stage in resume composition. However, in utilizing resume-building strategies such as Randazzo’s decision tree, teaching resume skills may transform the process to a more refined and relevant one.