Toast of the Resume Industry Awards (TORI)
The 2026 TORI Awards are now closed.
Each year, CDI hosts the resume writing industry’s most prestigious Toast of the Resume Industry™ (TORI) resume writing competition. The TORI™ Award competition is truly the resume writer’s #1 secret to explosive business growth.
CDI members are eligible and encouraged to strive for TORI™ awards, because while they help elevate the industry as a whole, they also allow professional resume writers to stand out as leaders in their craft. The TORI™ winner page is CDI’s most popular web page attracting attention from thousands of job seekers worldwide.
Many winners and nominees state that being listed on that coveted page was like flicking their business switch to a solid ON, allowing them to pick and choose their ideal clients, work on the projects they are passionate about, and charge a premium for their services.
CDI introduced the TORI™ Awards to the industry in 2000 to celebrate a new standard in excellence through rigorous criteria requirements. While award standards have always been demanding, never before has the resume writing industry embraced the concept of a standardized criteria for resume judging.
In today’s climate, standing out with an award matters more than ever!
The 2026 competition offers huge opportunity for all professional resume writers to make their mark and make it easier for job seekers to value and select their services!
Like last year we have classic design categories! There are still ten (10) categories to enter, 50 chances to be nominated, and 30 chances to win.
We love and embrace the immense creativity and design of today’s TORI-winning resumes. Our founder, Laura DeCarlo, was an early pioneer in this area, winning resume writing awards for Most Visually Distinctive Resume and Most Creative Resume.
While Laura knows the immense value that a graphically-enhanced resume brings to a networking job search and an online search (when either made ATS-friendly with our how-to tutorial or when accompanied by an ATS-friendly resume), she feels it’s equally important that we embrace the more traditional resume styles at the other end of the spectrum:
Classic Equals Exceptional Writing, Keywords, and Light Design for Ease of Read yet Maximum Engagement.
For the sake of TORI award category titles, these available categories are called “Classic” as in Best Classic Executive Resume. (We didn’t think that Best Light Design Executive Resume makes a lot of sense to job seekers!!)
About Classic Resumes
You can view recent Classic category winners on our TORI Winner’s page.
Let’s further define this with sample Classic resume do’s and don’ts.
Do’s
- Write at the same elevated level as the prior TORIs, with emphasis on avoiding word repetition, maintaining same verb tense and voice, writing powerfully, using personal branding, and emphasizing results with CAR-type stories.
- Focus on a layout that imparts readability and easily guides the eye to critical information by being visually engaging. This can be done with use of bullets, spacing, font choice, knock out text, typographical elements (bold, underline), optional light use of color and simple line-based page borders, simple divider lines, symbols as bullets, and text boxes/basic shading for non-ATS data like a quote from a reference.
- Include keywords and other ATS-friendly content.
Don’ts
- Mistake this as a content-only competition. The resume must still be visually appealing in such a way that the reader is drawn into wanting to scan quickly or read further. Classic does not mean basic ugly template.
- Use graphics. You should avoid all background graphics, images, logos, photos, clipart, smart art, borders (besides simple line), full backgrounds, charts, or graphs.
- Focus on a bare-bones ATS style. Instead make it visually appealing while taking ATS into consideration. You are looking for a happy balance between ATS and human review.
Benefits of the TORI Competition
It’s a great honor to be nominated, but a truly distinguishing accomplishment to be selected as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place TORI Award Winner in each category.
Imagine you woke up this morning, a morning seemingly like every other morning except for one considerable difference – today you’re swamped with new resume clients who are excited to have the chance to work with you and pay your rates.
So, what’s so different about today that suddenly your prospects seem to be sold before you even talk to them? Why they appear to be waiting to work with you? Why it’s suddenly so much easier to gain their buy in on the higher rates you are quoting for your services?
It’s not magic…it’s not a course to take, a certification you need to earn, 365 days of posting to social, or even an ad you need to pay for…
It’s the AWESOME power of taking home a prestigious TORI nomination or award.
If that makes you feel skeptical, take a moment and look at the testimonials from your fellow colleagues on this page.
While winning or being nominated will change your business forever, there are big wins for ALL who enter!
Here’s the thing about the TORI Award competition – you need to throw caution to the wind and JUST DO IT! Telling yourself you are not ready, not good enough or worse, too busy, causes you to lose out on an amazing opportunity to challenge yourself, grow, learn, and even surprise yourself!
It’s a loooong 365 days between each annual competition and standing out matters sooooo much today against 6 million underqualified resume writers confusing your prospects. Sometimes you just have to stop thinking and do it!
Not sure the TORIs are for you?
Listen to this audio recording to learn about:
Here are seven ways you can win just by entering.
Take the advice of those who have come before you and cover your bases to win at this once-a-year career-making opportunity!
In talking with a few of these potential clients, I learned that several of them were ONLY interested in working with nominees in the Classic Executive category. This surprised me at first, but then I realized it’s on-trend with the way executives want to be presented these days-big impact with clean, ATS-friendly design. The Classic Exec category is a perfect fit for the majority of executives out there.”
Being nominated or winning an award says to a potential client ‘Wow this person is a cut above, I want some of that to rub off on me!’
Whether people have heard about TORIs or not is immaterial. It’s all about education. I proudly display my TORI awards on my website and TELL the client of their value by saying, ‘Hey look no further! I’m an award-winner!’ It’s one of those things that is little work for great rewards.
It takes no time to fictionalise an existing resume and provide a synopsis, but if you WIN or even if you are nominated, you have strong marketing collateral that you can repeatedly use to sing your own praises and give you that extra edge for years at no additional cost.”
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I was so glad I did.
I was hoping for just one nomination and thought I stood a chance. That first year I took 5 wins, including a first place win in the hospitality category. The following year, it was a sweep: 5 first-place wins and 7 in total.
Looking back at the sweep, I was probably ready to enter much sooner and at least grab up a nomination or two.
As to the ROI, there are a few things to note.
First is the quality of the prospects that hear about me through the TORIs. They are not out seeking the most affordable service they can find. They are looking for the best and are willing to pay for it. I am now charging over $2K for a resume, LinkedIn profile, and cover letter package.
Secondly, selling is easier no matter how the prospect comes to me. If they heard about me through the TORIs, in large part, they are already sold. They’ve scoured the list of winners and chosen me because they prefer my style. When they come to me through referrals or other efforts, the wins solidify my expertise in their minds as I share my award-winning resumes (which I’m not shy in pointing out), screen-sharing my wins with them during the consultation.
Finally, my referral business has grown considerably as the TORI wins have strengthened my profile within the industry.
Since my investment in the low hundreds of dollars, I’ve bought in at least $25K in project fees, directly attributable to the TORIs in the last couple of years. Note that this is not for a massive number of projects, but a smaller number of high-priced ones.
This return doesn’t reflect: the clients who come from referrals from those TORI-sourced clients; the many projects that have been referred to me by other writers since winning; or the amount I’ve earned in referral fees from sending prospects away who aren’t willing to way 6 – 8 weeks to get on my schedule. What I can’t estimate is the number of non-TORI prospects who I’ve converted based on my wins, which I suspect is much higher than the $25K.
Entering into the TORIs is and will continue to be a top priority for me each year. There’s no way I will let the opportunity pass me by again.”
Since then, I consistently get at least one ready-to-order client per month, willing to spend an average of $2,500 for my services. They have only heard about me through the TORI Awards and nowhere else. These clients often place online orders without any kind of phone engagement.
But let me tell you about the surprise type of customer that tends to contact me on a (roughly) quarterly basis. These are clients who have already worked with TORI-winning resume writers. Sometimes, they want to change out their existing writer for the new hot shot. Other times, they return to the website of their existing writer, see that they won a TORI Award in 2011, and then go look at the TORI Award page out of curiosity to find me, the newest winner. When they find out their writer hasn’t won an award since 2011, they call on someone who has.
That’s right – you can’t rest on your laurels. Discerning executive job seekers want the newest and hottest champions. Each and every year.
These ‘TORI-snob’ clients have opened another steady revenue stream. Again – I don’t need to pitch them. They see the awards and the samples, and they are ready to order.
My $200 investment has already made me tens of thousands of dollars from customers who are already excited and ready to buy my services – no sales pitch needed. I can’t even calculate how many sales my TORI Awards have generated by convincing on-the-fence prospects to invest thousands of dollars for my services.“
“So after 10 years of my primary or total income coming from contract writing, I’ve now had to completely end all of my treasured contract relationships because contractors cannot pay me nearly as much as my direct clients. This is because of the TORIs.
I just got off the phone with a client who was elated that I was willing to take the job. This was tough to squeeze in though, as I am extremely busy. This is because of the TORIs.
All the other resume writers this client contacted (all TORI winners) were too overwhelmed with work to accept his assignment. This is because of the TORIs.
He’s hoping I can make his resume as good as his wife’s resume, which is being developed by Tiffany Hardy, who she found through the TORIs.
The biggest problem I currently have is managing all the clients who learn about me through the TORIs, and then also squeezing in the extra time needed to prepare samples for the 2019 TORIs.
This is the catch-22 of the TORIs.”
In 2018 I took the leap of faith, entered, and won third place in the New Graduate category. Winning the TORI has expanded my clientele; many clients have told me the graphic elements of my TORI entry set me apart from other writers and prompted them to give me a call. Additionally, this award has helped me gain credibility when presenting to community groups on job search topics.
So much of our work as resume writers is advocating for our clients. We work hard to show evidence of how our clients stand out from the pack and differentiate from other candidates. Winning this award is just that for me; it’s proof that I am good at what I do – achievement supported by hard data.”
Want to Learn How to Improve Your Chances When Entering?
Access resume writing tutorials by winners.
CDI members have access to a growing library of video lessons from top TORI winners.
Winners have credited these lessons for giving their design and writing skills the necessary boost.
From MS Word design and story-based branding to making graphics ATS-friendly, these tools set you up for success.
Here are 10 TORI-winning tips in 10 minutes.
Award Categories for 2026
Each year, the TORI Awards Director, in tandem with the CDI Board of Advisors, selects the most applicable categories which best reflect current market trends. CDI members are welcome to contribute one (1) entry to each category. Yes, that means you could enter a regular TORI and a classic TORI category with different resumes appropriate for each category. (See above for explanation of Classic categories).
The TORI Awards Director will ensure all submissions appear anonymous to the panel of judges so that fair and equitable judging can take place.
The first tier of judges are all certified resume writers, members of CDI’s resume certification committee, and many former TORI winners. They are responsible for selecting five nominees in each category. A second similar panel of highly-qualified and certified resume writers will then select the first, second, and third place winners in each category, leading to 50 nominees, and 30 total winners.
The 2026 TORI categories are:
Just Three Easy Steps to Get Started
Important Rule: TORI entries must be created solely through your own efforts and the input of your client. However, utilizing a third-person proofreader is acceptable.
- Select what categories you plan to enter from the 2026 category list above.
- Register online for the number of TORIs you plan to submit. You can start with one in order to receive the submission rules, and then add more categories before the deadline.
- Once registered you will receive instructions for fictionalizing, Client permissions, naming, saving, and submitting your resume(s) via email.
You can submit entries in A4 size and you can also opt to use any English style you wish.
Refunds will not be issued should you opt not to follow through with entry or submit after the deadline.
Nominations and winners will be announced once all judging is completed (Dates TBA typically nominees in October and winners November/December).
You must be a CDI member in good standing to register, be nominated for, or win a TORI.
Important TORI Deadlines
Registration for 2026 is now open. If you have already ordered but wish to purchase more categories (up to 10 total), use the orange box below.
- Registration Deadline: The registration deadline to lock in at least one category and receive entry instructions is Wednesday, July 15, 2026.
- Submission Deadline: Once registered, you have extra time to submit your entries. The entry submission deadline for those already registered is Wednesday, August 5, 2026 at 5 PM Eastern / 2 PM Pacific time.
Ready to register?
Registration for 2026 is now closed until Wednesday, July 15, 2026.
If you have already ordered but wish to purchase more categories (up to 10 total), use the orange box below. Buying at least one category before July 18th gives you instant access to the rules and guidelines, and ensures you have until August 5, 2026 to purchase additional categories and submit entries.
TORIs are only open to CDI members. Each entry is $25-40 depending on quantity of categories entered. Not a member? Learn more about membership.
For initial annual TORI purchases made at any one time*:
You can save, and increase your chances to win, when you purchase multiple category entries at one time!
- When you buy 1-2 total categories = $40 US each
- When you buy 3-4 total categories = $35 US each
- When you buy 5-7 total categories = $30 US each
- When you buy 8-10 total categories = $25 US each
Cart will automatically calculate the discount based on number entered. Please remember there are only ten categories.
* Rates will not be adjusted for categories entered after the initial TORI registration purchase. Refunds will not be issued should you opt not to enter a purchased category after registering or submit after the deadline. Please plan your time during the several months available for TORI registration and entry to meet the deadlines.