How Google Docs Can Help You Come Across As A Professional

by Mihir Patkar

You probably know that Google Docs, the online word processor app that’s a part of Google Drive, is free if you have a Google account. What you probably don’t know is that Google Docs has a huge, free repository of ready templates that you can use for almost any professional scenario.

It’s a resource that I never thought about tapping, before reading an article by How-To Geek about using resume templates from Google Docs. As I explored templates more, it made sense to use this collection for common things you need at work. Boy, I bet you thought the Google Docs cheat sheet was the best-kept secret of the online word processor.

There is a lot more to the entire Google Docs Templates archive, but for the sake of illustrating this point, let’s take a look at five common documents needed in the workplace and how they can be repurposed for any need.

Craft A Résumé

Dann recently looked at a new way to build a good-looking résumé for the webwith Sumry, but when you need to go the old-school route, the collection of résumé templates on Google Docs is impressive. Most of these only require you to change the details to fit your needs and they are easy to format in case you need to make any changes.

For a more traditional CV, you can check out Resume – Standard and it should meet all your needs. But to stand out from the crowd, Resume – Creative looks different but still presents all the information you need to give.

Oh yeah, and if you need a cover letter, that’s covered with Cover Letter – Standardtoo, but look around for other options if you want to get creative.

Design A Business Card

If you have got the job, you need to tell people about it. A good business card can open doors and make you memorable, but if design isn’t your thing, turn to Google Docs Templates for some help.

My favourite in this is Business Cards Layout, which keeps things simple while giving all the information needed, and prints 10 standard-sized cards in a regular A4 sheet. The default is on a dark grey background, but don’t be afraid to change the colour. Just remember one rule: If it’s a dark colour, use white font; if it’s a light colour, use black font. Once you change the information to your needs, you will want to export this to a PDF format before printing.

Or you could just turn to one of these six sources for cheap and beautiful business cards.

Get Your Own Letterhead

A key to coming across as professional is your own letterhead. Saikat has shown you how to create a custom letterhead in Word, but why go through all that trouble when you have a free template waiting to be quickly changed to your words at Google Docs?

If you don’t plan on using a logo, then this template gets the job done. Make it look better by playing around a bit with printer-friendly fonts. If there is some image that you need with it, the E-Sports Canada letterhead will mean business while being easy to customize to your needs.

Send An Invoice

Business is about money, so when you need to collect, you need to send out an invoice. There is a massive list of invoice templates available at Google Docs. A lot of them are actually based on the sister app for spreadsheets, Google Sheets, but you can play it clean and safe in your favourite word processor with the Invoice – Professional (Cool) template that looks good and has all the functionality you need. There’s a second page for the date, but delete that and use the date field at the top of the first page instead.

Speaking of finances and Google Docs, you might want to use some of these 10 money management tools hidden inside Google Drive, one of which is an invoice payment tracker!

Quit It

As hard as it is, at some point, you are probably going to need to write a resignation letter and move on from your job. It’s a difficult time and you might not be able to find the right words. Google Docs, thankfully, has your back.

Resignation letters don’t actually need to be unnecessarily long, it’s more a formal letter and you should actually be talking to your boss in person about everything. That formality is met perfectly by Yugal’s Resignation Letter Template. But just in case you want to write a longer letter and expand on your thoughts, Vertex42′s Letter of Resignation has guidelines on what you should and shouldn’t write, ensuring you don’t say or miss something you will regret later.

Source: www.makeuseof.com