If you haven't thought about using creativity or an individual style in your resume, you might not be making the impact on potential employers that you were hoping for. Consider this, when Captain David Sands of the Diamond Royal Casino applied for his position, he knew he was up against stiff competition. A creative and unique resume got his foot in the door, and excellent interview skills did the rest.

So, what forms does a creative resume take in this age of technology? To determine this, you must recognize what a successful creative resume is not. It is not neon yellow or pink paper, bright enough to scorch the corneas. It is not lofty wording or overly ornate and difficult to read fonts. It is not cutesy stationery or even preprinted stock papers. The bottom line, it is not anything that makes the job of the reviewer more difficult.

Creative resumes are tasteful, targeted documents that immediately evoke a positive image to the potential employer who is reviewing it. Creative resumes take on many different concepts. Sometimes all that is needed is a unique quote, presentation or layout. In other cases, the choices are much more dramatic. When Chef Orvis Hollobaugh decided to target private yachts for his next position, he commissioned a unique, full color resume designed to look and read just like a fine restaurant menu. Hollobaugh quickly surpassed his own ideas of success, landing interviews on several yachts including Yacht Ivanna, the private yacht of Ivanna Trump.

Regardless of your career field, personality or employment goal, there is an approach that is right for you. Following are a few successful strategies used by some of our clients. A software designer used a multimedia resume on disk to showcase his skills. An engineer attending a job fair attached a glossy, folded business card style resume to his traditional ivory resume for after-the-event impact. The previously mentioned boat captain used a conventional style on blue paper with an imprinted cruise ship on it. A sales executive with strong documented sales growth visually demonstrated achievements with a full color graph depicting annual sales growth and productivity.

If you are worried that a creative resume will not meet the technological advances and fast paced environment that computer scannability is causing, have no fear. You can easily safeguard yourself by always including a traditional white copy of your resume along with the creative one. For added protection, state in your cover letter that you have enclosed a scannable copy for their convenience. This will ensure that no matter how wonderfully innovative your resume is, it will not lose you consideration in a company that scans resumes for keywords.

While these methods might not be appropriate for the position you are applying for, try not to limit yourself to only the ordinary methods of finding a job. Even traditional industries such as education have been successfully infiltrated by the creative resume. Using innovation sparingly might be the best approach for you. To determine your best approach, do not do anything out of character for you or that makes you feel uncomfortable. Remember also, when using creative resumes, you will not necessarily please all of the employers all of the time. But if your creative resume lands you an interview like it has for the job seekers described above, it has achieved what it was designed for: to boost you above your competition and give you an edge in getting the interview.