When you’re looking for personal branding ideas, I recommend getting inspiration from Pinterest. You can save a series of sample resumes by having an account with Pinterest. Start creating a new board and curate a collection of designs and styles that best represents you.

Once you gather a series of designs and layouts, you can start thinking about the shades of colour and types of font that match your style. If you’re not sure about the colours, you can generate and download a colour palette from Coolors.co.

When I started on my branding, I made a colour scheme with multiple HEX codes (ex. #415A77). Based on my selection, I used darker shades as a header background and  lighter tones as borders for my resume and cover letter design.

Here is a example of a Coolors.co palette:

If you don’t have any design experience, try using Canva. Many resume templates are readily available and free to download. I suggest changing some formats and colours away from the default template. You can switch up the design by replacing the original colours with your colour palette.

This resume design is one of the default templates on Canva:

I created a sample version of the default resume from the colour palette I made:

I recommend using the same header format for your cover letter. You can be consistent with your branding across all application materials. A sample cover letter format could look like this:

Keep in mind that there is a limitation in using default templates from Canva. Employers could receive other application submissions with similar formats and typefaces.

When I applied for my internship positions, I created my resume using Adobe InDesign. With InDesign, I installed unique fonts to add another level of creativity to my branding.

Depending on the time you have to invest in personal branding, you can learn how to use InDesign. Due to COVID-19, Adobe is offering temporary free access to Creative Cloud for students until May 31, 2020. Link for more information: https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/enterprise/kb/covid-19-education-labs.html

I strongly advise you to take this opportunity to learn new design skills because it will help you stand out among other applicants. If you have any questions, feel free to connect with me through LinkedIn.