How to design a great resume

Resume Design Tips

The only other important thing about having a good resume with solid content, is also having a good-looking resume. Aesthetically, you want your resume to be organized and able to draw a reader in. You want your hiring manager to take note of ALL your accomplishments, past work experiences, and skills as though they are literally jumping off the page. From the moment the hiring manager or HR rep opens your resume, you’ve got about fifteen seconds before they decide if they will CONTINUE reading. Make it count! Here are a few basic recommendations on how you can design the best looking resume possible:

• Use readable fonts – We went a little more in-depth in a previous post on this, but when it comes to fonts, you want to choose ones that are perfectly legible, but not dull. Serif fonts such as Times New Roman or Cambria have tiny adoring feet on their letters, and when displayed in smaller font, can cause the words to appear cluttered. They’re also not as visually pleasing. Use these fonts only as larger section headers, and instead use rounder sans serif fonts like Helvetica or Ariel for the smaller print.
• Use separation to create visual space – Break up your past work experiences into sections and sub-sections, with at least a blank line of uniform spacing between each. Bold, underline, or italicize these different sections, and use section headers as an organizational tool. You want the reader of your resume to be able to go down your list—from one past work experience to the next—without all of the details blending together. However, DO NOT use text boxes to do this; they tend to look very tacky and are not compatible with company applicant tracking systems. You don’t want your resume to end up in the hiring manager’s trash file because of a formatting error.
• Use header space wisely – If your contact info in the header at the top of the page is too dense, a recruiter will skip right over it. Use this header space wisely. Try to condense it all into one or two lines. You don’t need a separate line for the address, phone number, email, etc. Also, don’t list multiple email addresses or phone numbers. Use whatever ones where you can most easily be reached.
• Use bullet points, not paragraphs – From a visual standpoint, paragraphs are too dense and the key words do not stand out. By listing out your skills and achievements in bullets, you are more likely to catch the reader’s eye. It’s all about getting the recruiter to read through everything!

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