Tips for Correctly Formatting Your Resume

Tips for Correctly Formatting Your Resume Tips for Correctly Formatting Your Resume If you’re in the process of writing, rewriting, or updating your resume, you’ve probably worried about all sorts of things- the order of different sections, whether to leave out certain information, and more. But have you thought about the best choices for formatting your resume? Good news: we’ve done some of the thinking or you! During my time as a college career advisor, I reviewed hundreds of resumes. I’ve also talked with dozens of recruiters and hiring managers about what they prefer to see when a resume arrives in their inbox. Just as you’re attracted to or repelled from websites and publications because of their formatting, recruiters and hiring managers can be enticed by or driven away from a resume based on its formatting. Follow these rules-of-the-resume-road to draw a recruiter’s attention and maximize the impact you can have with formatting your resume: 1. Leave fancy formatting to professional resume writers. It might be tempting to get fancy with your resume, but if you’re formatting the document on your own (and you aren’t a graphic designer or professional resume writer), simple formats are the way to go. The vast majority of resumes are first screened by an applicant tracking system (ATS), so your document needs to be readable by a computer, first and foremost. Formats should be largely text-based, though you can add some creativity with font choice and a bit of color. 2. Format your resume yourself instead of using a template. If you’re like most people, spending the time to format your resume is as fun as going to the dentist or doing your taxes. Why waste that time when Microsoft Word and other programs have so many templates to use? I beg of you, don’t use a pre-built template. Resume templates are difficult to personalize, they make terrible use of space, and they take away a lot of your options for showcasing your information in the best way. Hiring managers cringe at template resumes and they aren’t impressed with them. In fact, some recruiters think a resume template is a sign that the candidate doesn’t understand Microsoft Word well enough to create a basic resume. You might save time (though, wrestling those templates is often time-wasting!), but you will lose valuable job search capital by not formatting the document yourself. 3. Don’t take lightly your choice of font. CNBC interviewed typographers to discover the best fonts to use on your resume: Georgia, Merriweather, Constantia, Calibri, and Gill Sans. Resume writers Ive spoken with also recommend these classics: Times New Roman, Garamond, Arial, and Trebuchet. When in doubt, choose a common font. Send your document to a couple friends to see if your font is common enough to appear on their computers, too. If it’s not, you’ll see just how wonky your document will look to a recruiter. 4. Build in white space. What makes a resume easy to read? A good balance of white space and text. Resumes that are wall-to-wall text are difficult for people to scan, and recruiters almost always scan documents rather than thoroughly reading them. 5. Let your resume mirror the industry where you want to work. Your choice of resume format will often depend on which industry you’re hoping to work in. Traditional formatting, font, and color choices are best for traditional industries, whereas more creative industries might expect to see more creative resumes. When in doubt, ask friends and networking contacts if you can view their resumes to spark ideas for your own. 6. Consider two resumes: one for computer scanners and one for human beings. Your resume will almost always be read first by a computer (an applicant tracking system, as mentioned earlier), and second by a human (a recruiter or hiring manager). One option is having a traditional, text-based resume to submit to the applicant tracking system and a well-formatted, more creative resume to submit to the hiring manager or contact at the company. Each document should convey the same information, but each audience will have an easier time reading their specific version. 7. Convert your resume to a PDF before sending. You’re probably creating your resume in Microsoft Word or a similar word processing program. But from those programs, you can save your resume in different file formats. Which should you choose? Saving your resume as a PDF is a good option because it ensures the formatting is consistent regardless of the computer where it’s being read. You can convert your resume to PDF directly from the word processing program youve used. Dont make this fatal mistake: scanning a printed paper copy of your printed resume to create a static file. Some job seekers think that’ll produce the same thing as a PDF but it won’t! Instead, scanning a paper resume into your computer turns your resume into an image file, which is completely unreadable by applicant tracking systems. And it’s not always easy to read by recruiters, depending on the quality of the scan. Other file types to avoid: .txt, .rtf, and .pages. And, since not everyone has the latest Microsoft Word version, you might want to avoid .docx. When in doubt, submit a .DOC file to applicant tracking systems for maximum scannability, and a PDF to recruiters and hiring managers when you know they’ll be reading your resume directly. If youre a member, you can have your resume reviewed or written at a discounted rate! members have access to exclusive, deeply-discounted career coaching and resume reviews with our team of career coaches! Work with a career coach in a one-on-one career coaching session, have a resume reviewed and updated, or both.   Not a member? Sign up today!