Formatting Your Resume
Posted by ayeshawrites4u on August 18, 2009
An often overlooked factor to most resumes is presentation. Whether or not an employer will take a second look at your resume is all based on how the information and wording is presented. Fail to command his attention in under thirty seconds, he will never know that you have been the governor’s personal assistant for the past ten years. Have over two formats and he won’t care that you graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.
Why? Because we are a superficial society that bases most of our judgments on appearance. If we do not like what we see, then we fail to value it for what it is actually worth. Don’t believe me? Show up to work with wrinkled clothes and smelly armpits while being 25% more productive than you’ve been in the past five years at your company. Will anyone notice your greater efforts and productivity? Nope. In fact, you might even be sent home for the day to go wash and get yourself together.
With that said, let’s look at how to create a resume that will shine and give forth a polished, respectable appearance WITHOUT looking like every other resume that your employer will see.
First, pick a font. Only one font. This font must be a serif font, such as Garamond or Georgia. Serif fonts have more curvature than sans serif fonts, such as Arial or Courier and typically look like typewritten letters. Even though all resumes should have serif fonts, don’t feel limited to using Times New Roman. Most word processing programs have between 25 and 80 fonts to choose from. Be creative because whatever font you choose will be used throughout your entire resume. If you need to emphasize headings, important phrases, and titles – you can use other accents such as italics, bold, underlining, and changing font size. If you feel it absolutely necessary to differentiate your contact information, then you can choose to use a different font for your phone and e-mail with the caveat that the different font is still readable.
Second, you are going to decide how to break up your work history. If you are applying for an entry-level position, then you should typically use bullets to highlight both your responsibilities and accomplishments. If you are applying for a C-level position, transitioning careers and worked for smaller, unknown companies, or have worked previously as a CEO or COO, your resume should be comprised of a paragraph defining your responsibilites and the size of the company and bullets for your accomplishments.
Third, differentiate your headings. Are you going to use shading to distinguish each section of your resume verses borders? Or are you going to use the typical format where your headings are to the left and your explanation of each section is to the right? Most resumes no longer use the latter and will choose between one of the former alternatives to make their format more attractive and appealing to the eyes.
Fourth, define your bullets. Yes, bullets are a neccessity and every resume MUST have them. But that doesn’t mean that every bullet has to look alike. Look in the bullets section of your word processsing program and choose the bullets that are most appealing to you. Chances are – if you like them, your future employer will like them as well. I often like to alternate bullet patterns between sections to break the monotony of the same bullets within the document and to keep the reader’s attention. If you choose this approach, make sure that your bullet choices complement each other.
Lastly, check your tabs and margins. If you are creating your resume from scratch, you should define your tab areas so that each section is perfectly aligned. If your resume goes over two pages or takes less than 1/3 of another page, play around with your tabs and margins to keep the resume on the same page.
And there you have it. My five tips on how to format a job winning resume – or at least a resume that will get you interviewed. To get the job – you have to put in the work when you get called in for your interview!
As always, good luck with your job search.
Ayesha Long
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