How would I typeset a two-column layout, where the headings are on the left side and the contents are on the right?

Question

I'm trying to typeset my resume using TeX. I'll start off by showing an approximation of what I want to do with this picture:

Note the red lines in the picture are only for illustrative purposes. Here are the details. I would like to have a two-column format. My resume would have some headings, like EDUCATION, and EXPERIENCE, these headings should all be on the left side of the thick line. (Refer to the picture.) All the contents that belong to the headings are on the right side. Also, I would like the first line of contents to align with its corresponding heading, as shown by the thinner lines.

Here's my attempt at solving this problem. The following code gave rise to the above picture. It's hacky, and I really don't like it:

\long\def\section#1#2{{\leftskip=1.5in \noindent\llap{\hbox to 1.5in{#1\hss}}#2\par}\medskip}
...
\section
    {EXPERIENCE}
    {These are my experiences\par\indent Experience 1\par\indent Experience 2}

There are many problems with this. First, because I can have multiple paragraphs in the contents, I had to use \long\def for the definition. The macro also awkwardly uses \llap to force the headings on the left side. The \noindent in the macro forces the start of a paragraph. It does not do the line-breaking properly for the heading (as you can see from the summary of qualifications). If I typed a lot of contents, it probably won't do the correct line breaking for that, either.

I thought that there's got to be a better way to do this. At this point, I'm still torn about the choice between between LaTeX and ConTeXt. The choice would be a different discussion, but I can accept answers in either flavour.

Answer 1

There are several existing templates for writing cvs/resumes, a lot of which are detailed in LaTeX template for resume/curriculum vitae

However, if you'd like to make your own, you can use the enumitem package to help with the formatting you described- think of your desired formatting as a simple list, with the items in the margin.

You can, of course, tweak this to suit your needs. A complete MWE follows.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[left=6.5cm,right=1.5cm,showframe=false,
    top=2cm,bottom=1.5cm]{geometry}               
\usepackage{enumitem}   % customize lists

% custom list (so that we can put stuff in the margin)
\newlist{myitemize}{itemize}{5}
\setlist[myitemize]{label=\textbullet,labelsep=.5cm,leftmargin=0mm,font=\sc,itemsep=0pt,topsep=0pt}

\begin{document}

\begin{myitemize}
  \item[Summaray of qualification] 
    \begin{itemize}
      \item Qualification 1
      \item Qualification 2
      \item Qualification 3
    \end{itemize}
  \item[Education] This is my education
  \item[Experience] This is my experience
\end{myitemize}
\end{document}