Which Resume Colors Help You Stand Out to Recruiters?

The digital age makes a difference to the way we consume the information. We are not satisfied by the simple text anymore; we are attracted to eye-catching, colorful pieces of text combined with images. The same works for your resume. Modern resume templates make use of color to draw attention of hiring managers and help you get noticed faster.

However, using the first color that comes to your mind won't help you make a professional impression. You should pick colors for your resume carefully so that it makes the right impression on recruiters and help emphasize your strengths. In this guide, we will tell about the best colors for resume, visual impact and branding, and explain how to use color psychology to stand out.

If you have no time to write, contact us for resume writing help, and our writer will strengthen your resume content and pick a color scheme right for your needs.

Why Resume Color Matters in 2025

Black text on a light background isn't the best option anymore. We are used to colorful resume design and fancy templates. Here's why you can benefit from adding colors on your resume in 2025:

• It makes your resume look attractive and easy on the eye. All in all, the resume's purpose is to make the recruiter notice your resume and pay attention to your experience and skills. A colored resume serves this purpose better than a monochrome one.
• It highlights the key details. Using colors to make your accomplishments, testimonials or other details that can sell you for the job pop up is a smart move. You can be the best of breed in accounting, but who will notice it if your accomplishments are packed at the resume's bottom?
• It communicates the connection with the brand. Are you applying for a dream company? Then, how about formatting your resume in using their brand colors? It will show the hiring manager that you are serious about the opportunity and share brand's values.
• It shows your creativity. If you work in a creative industry such as software development, design, or advertising, your resume's design is a great way to show off your creative potential. Just don't go overboard â this is still a professional document.
• It showcases your personality. With colors, you can present your personal brand even before the employers reads the application. By using colors that signal hard work, loyalty, or ambition, you can make the right impression subconchiously.

Adding a touch of color can make your resume more eye-catchy, therefore increasing the time recruiters spend reviewing your resume. Moreover, you can make the right impression on them by using colors wisely. Below, we will explain what exact accent color to use depending on the industry and the impression you're looking to make.

Understanding Resume Color Psychology

Colors on your resume not only make the document visually appealing. It also makes an emotional impact on the recruiter, either helping your resume stand out or turning off the reader.

Before you add any color to your resume, pay attention to the color theory. According to it, each color contributes to the impression the HR manager makes about you. Here are the key color associations:

• Red â is commonly used to express action, courage and power. Feel free to design your resume in red shades to demonstrate rapid growth, orientation on action and aggressive business tactics.
• Orange â is the best color to show your energy, excitement and productivity. If your career assumes cheerful mood and enthusiasm, feel free to pick orange.
• Yellow â a worldwide color of optimism, creativity and positive vision. Storyism.net states that bright yellow catches our attention more than any other color, so highlighting your most important achievements in yellow is a way to help you get noticed.
• Green â represents the environment, growth, calmness and the rebirth process. It's a good idea to design your resume in green when applying to an eco-friendly organization or if your career history demonstrates slow yet constant growth.
• Navy blue â is best to show trust, reliability, intelligence, and security. These attributes make blue a perfect fit for IT resumes and when applying to non-profit organizations.
• Purple â means spirituality, luxury, inspiration or creativity. Many top managers have their resume designed in purple shades.

What are the best colors to add to your resume?

Overall, the best color picks for a resume include navy blue, light blue, gray, and dark green. Incorporating them helps you stand out among other job-seekers while maintaining a professional appearance. These colors work great for many industries, including finance, healthcare, retail, tech, manufacturing, and so on.

If you'r'e looking to build a creative resume, you may incorporate brigher colors, such as red, purple, or orange. But keep in mind that for some industries brighter colors might not be perfectly acceptable, and submitting a too-creative application might jeopardize your job search.

Another rule of thumb is to use bright and bold colors as accents. Don't use yellow as a background color or, worse yet, put yellow font on a white paper. Above all, keep your resume readable. Here's a more detailed breakdown of resume colors for different industries and personal branding.

Resume Colors by Industry: What Works Where

To create a standout resume with color accents, keep the industry norms in mind. What is acceptable in a resume for a creative copywriter position might be totally inappropriate when you're applying to a law firm or a bank. Here are the best resume color schemes for different industries.

Finance and corporate

For resumes in conservative and traditional industries, use safe and muted colors throughout the entire resume. Use black font on a light background, and incorporate colors like navy blue, green, characoal, or dark green to add a modern touch. Blue conveys trust and professionalism, whereas green symbolizes balance and values. Use these colors sparingly to highlight your name and job titles, or to divide between the sections.

You can use light pastels such as beige or light gray instead of white for the background. Yet, make sure to create sufficient contrast between the font and the background.

Tech industry

For jobs in tech and marketing, use green and blue as well, but opt for bolder, brighter tones that attract attention. Good high-contrast color combinations also include light blue, characoal, and black or green with gray and beige. Such color choices will highlight your forward-thinking approach, initiative, and positive attitude, which is valued in various marketing and IT roles.

For a professional look, avoid too many bright colors in one document. Using only one bold color and two softer ones will enhance your job application and will evoke feelings of professionalism and dependability.

Creative fields

In creative fields such as design, arts, media, or content creation, you can go beyond the standard resume and experiment with bolder colors and creative combinations. At the same time, remember that the resume might work as an example of your creative style, so be very selective about colors.

For example, you may use a light font on a dark-color background, or use an energetic color such as yellow or purple as accent. Or, use a teal or soft pink that few people use to stand out for the competition for creative roles. Another approach is to design your resume in the company's brand colors. Make sure that all elements are balanced, and create enough contrast - don't sacrifice readability trying to create a catchy design.

Education

When applying for teaching positions, avoid bright and bold colors. Career coach recommends that you use safer, more traditional options such as green, different shades of brown, grey, or navy blue. Gentle earthly colors will help communicate friendliness, dependability, and loyalty, and create the right visual appearance.

To soften the contrast, use a lighter shade for the background, for example, light beige or cream tones.

Healthcare

The best option for a healthcare resume is a combination of blue, white, and black/gray. Blue conveys trust and reliability, which are the exact traits you want to communicate in this industry. Green is also a good option, as it is associated with health and well-being. Avoid templates with dark background or bright, bold colors in a resume for healthcare roles.

The great news is that you can use our professional templates designed in various colors to make the right impression. At ResumePerk, we offer free Google Docs resume templates with various color schemed suited for every industry. Download now and get ready for more interviews!

How to Choose Resume Colors That Match Your Brand

You can easily turn the resume into a personal branding tool by using the right colors. After you've formulated your brand and value proposition, just choose colors that represent these values, and use them in resume design to land more job interviews.

Here are some more recommendations to use colors effectively:

1. Don't turn your resume into a rainbow
   being over-creative isn't the best tactic for a job hunt. The overuse of bright colors never makes a good impression on a hiring manager. They can either think that you don't take the application process seriously or you're not familiar with how business documents should be formatted. Anyway, the purpose of making a desired effect won't be reached.
2. Use the color consistently
   the reason why you want to make your resume not black and white is to get noticed and to convey your message to the HR better. Therefore, you shouldn't use color just for the sake of it. Think over which aspects of your career history are the most impressive and highlight them with colored font or simply put the text into a color block. For instance, you can color the sections headings, or your achievements and awards, or the career summary, etc.
3. Get the best out of the psychology of color
   it's a well-known fact that every color affects our subconscious in a particular way. That's why you should be extremely picky about choosing a color for your resume. Don't just use a color simply because you like it or someone you know have already used this color in their resume. Consult with the list below and pick the color that better reflects your personal attributes and your impact on businesses:

How to use the color more effectively

Once you've made up your mind about the color that determines your personality, you can go further. Don't limit yourself by using the color in a resume only.Theladders.com gives a few more hints on how to utilize the influence of color with maximized efficiency:

• Use it on your personal website or blog, if you have one
• Add the color stripes or images in your social media profiles if your resume contains links to them
• Bring the items of the same color on the interview (i.e. pen, briefcase, accessories, etc.)
• Use the color in your e-mail signature
• Wear this color â just make sure that your appearance fits into the dress-code.

Best Practices for Resume Formatting and Color Design

To ensure a great resume layout with colors, follow these recommendations from resume experts:

Use bold colors as accents

Bold colors (such as purple, pink, bright green, or yellow) instantly draw attention. There's downside in using these colors, too - they can make your resume look unprofessional, especially if you use a bright, bold color as the background or apply it to the paragraphs of text.

Use bright colors on your resume sparingly - only to add subtle accents. For example, you can use a line in purple to divide between sections or to format your name. Using a bold color as accent draw the reader's eye without making yoru resume visually overwhemling or unprofessional.

Opt for three colors in a document

Unless you're a graphic design professional who knows for sure how to combine multiple colors to make the resume aestetically pleasing, don't use too many colors at a time. Three colors on a resume work best. Say, you can use white or porcelain for the background, black for resume text, and navy blue for section headlines and job titles. Such a resume will look visually structured and neat.

If you want a more creative, trendy design, use pink or light green as an accent color or add touches of gray (say, for employment dates and locations).

Make it consistent

Consistency is key to a poished, professional resume look. If you want to highlight job titles in dark green, make sure that each job title is formatted this way. If you used a thick red line to divide between the summary and work experience, add such lines between other sections, too. Consisten formatting makes an impression of thoughtfulness and professionalism, which is always valued by employers.

Format professionally

1. Use a readable font. Choose ATS-friendly fonts like Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman for readability. Keep body text at 10-12pt and headings at 14-16pt.
2. Choose a clean layout. Employ a clean layout with 0.5-1 inch margins and clear sections (Experience, Skills, Education), using white space to avoid a cluttered appearance.
3. Format headlines. Maintain uniform heading styles (font, size, capitalization) across all sections to create a resume that is easy to navigate.
4. Optimize for ATS. Ensure ATS (applicant tracking system) compatibility by avoiding tables, text boxes, and complex formatting. Set standard section titles (Professional Experience, Education, and so on) and keywords from the job description.
5. Use concise bullets. Write concise, one-to-two-line bullet points that start with strong action verbs and quantify your achievements whenever possible.

Contrasting colors make your resume memorable

Adding the third color (for example, green or red) to your traditional black and white resume design will give your resume a brighter look. Yet, there is more than one strategy when it comes to using colors on a resume. Experienced resume writers recommend that you use contrasting colors â the ones that are located on the opposite sides of the color wheel.

The examples of contrasting colors are blue and yellow (as on the Ikea logo), or green and purple. Contrasting colors allow for maximum readability, which means that your resume will be undoubtedly noticed in the pile of others. However, mind your industry when choosing a pair of colors â the options which are too bright might not be welcomed in, say, finance industry.

Design elements catch the reader's attention

Give your resume a creative touch and add something other than text. Graphs, charts, quotes, and text boxes work well on resume, subtly drawing the reader's eye to the most essential elements on the page. You may want to use a graph to show a progressive track record in sales or profitability, add a testimonial from the previous employer, or to indicate the skill level graphically. Since these elements are unique to you, they will help your resume to get noticed.

Are Colored Resumes ATS-Friendly?

A colored resume can give you a head start during the job search, distinguishing you from other job-seekers and communicating your personal brand. But are these colored resumes ATS-friendly?

The answer to the question "Do recruiters prefer colored resumes?" is Yes if you use color strategically. When reviewing incoming resumes, a recruiter will surely notice a bright, colored resume that looks visually appealing and structured. If your resume uses color smart and is easy to look through, it gets noticed faster.

As for ATS, the software can parse colored text with ease. However, you must consider the resume file type and overall formatting. Many fancy resume templates that you see online use text boxes and complex formatting which ATS cannot read. Therefore, using such a template can get you tossed.

To top it off, ATS systems can read colored resume, but make sure to use a simple formatting in the Microsoft Word file. Don't use tables, graphs, charts, as they can hurt readability. If you're looking for ATS-friendly colored resume templates, try our free templates in Google Docs. We've designed these templates with recruiters' preferences in mind, keeping it easy to read and compatible with most ATS systems that companies use.

FAQ: Resume Colors - Your Questions Answered

What color should the body text be in your resume?

For optimal readability, your resume's body text should remain black or dark gray on a white background. This ensures ATS-friendliness and accessibility for hiring managers.

Is it okay to use red color on a resume?

Red can evoke a sense of urgency and confidence, but it should be used sparingly. Limit red to headers or accent elements unless you're in a creative industry.

What are subtle resume color choices that look professional?

Subtle colors like navy, charcoal, slate blue, and forest green are safe for professional settings. These colors add structure and style without distracting the reader.

What resume colors are industry-specific?

Creative fields allow more flexibility with vibrant colors like purple or teal. Corporate, finance, or law sectors prefer neutral tones like navy, black, or dark gray.

Should your resume and cover letter use the same colors?

Yes. Using a consistent color scheme across your resume and cover letter builds visual branding and shows attention to detail, which employers appreciate.

Choosing the Best Resume Color: Final Thoughts

There isn't a definite answer to the question "What is the best color for resume?" Which colors to use depends on your industry norms, the impression you're looking to make, and your personal preferences. However, in most situations, using navy blue, dark green, or dark grey is best. If you want to create a high-contrast resume that pops, use a brighter color as accent, for example, pink, burgundy, blue, or yellow.

If you're feeling stuck and cannot choose colors to use, order custom resume with colors on our site. Our resume writers work together with graphic designers to create memorable yet professional resumes that get you noticed by top employers.

Reasons to get help with building a resume

Can't figure out which colors work better for your resume? Don't know which layout to apply to make a resume easy and comfortable to look through? Then, refer to professional resume writers for help. Here are just a few ways how our resume experts can contribute to your resume looks:

• Design is customized especially for you. We don't use ready-made templates and every resume produced by us looks different. The writer will work out the combination of layout, font and color to present your strengths more effectively.
• Effective choice of color. Not sure which color (or colors) to use or how better incorporate them into a resume to maximize its efficiency? Our writers know how to use color to draw the attention to your resume and make your advantages more visible for a hiring manager.
• Right fonts and resume structure. Did you know that the font and the order in which the information is given on a resume influences whether the resume will be read or not? By placing the text in the right order and formatting it up to the latest standards, writer composes a resume which evokes the desire to read it from the top to the bottom.

Help With Resume Colors From Professionals

Our experts will help you at every stage of building a resume - from picking the right colors and format to listing your achievements effectively, deciding on what to include, or downplaying career gaps. You'll work together with our in-house writer who will perfect resume content, format, and design so that it helps you stand out on a crowded job market. Get help with building a resume today or learn more about how much it costs to hire a resume expert.

Not sure if your resume needs an update? Chat with us for a free resume color consultation.

Do you make your resume colored or prefer a conservative âblack and white' style? Why?

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