You may wonder how to effectively design your resume to grab a recruiter’s attention and highlight your experience and skills adequately. Making a resume clear and easy on the eyes can be the difference between getting noticed and skipped over.
Font and Spacing
It may be tempting to want to fit as much information as possible on your resume, decreasing the margins, shrinking the spacing, and lowering the font size to 4. RESIST TEMPTATION. Use a basic and easy-to-read font like Calibri or Times New Roman. Do not use a font size smaller than 10 point. You want the recruiter to be able to read all the information you filled the page with! Keep standard margins and line spacing as either 1.0 or 1.15.
Creative or Simple?
The answer to this question may be different when applying for a job in an artistic field, but in general, keep your resume as simple as possible. Although it may seem appealing to have a “pretty” looking resume, it usually makes it more challenging to read. Stick with simple black and white—if you must, you could use gray if you wanted to separate some text/let it fade into the background (e.g., dates of employment). Remember K I S S: keep it simple, Sandler! (Adam Sandler is NOTORIOUS for his impeccably simple resumes).
Length
You have probably heard the age-old rule—don’t let your resume spill over one page! Is this true? YES. . .and no. If you are newer to the job market, stick to only one page. You CAN go over a page if you have over ten years of experience. If you are struggling to pare down your work experience, take off any experience that is not relevant to the job for which you are applying. Examine your job descriptions and make sure they are as succinct as possible.
Looking for help with the content of your resume? Check out this previous article we posted about writing an effective resume!
