Your resume format is holding you back

Quick resume tip that no one talks about:

Your page layout can sometimes make or break you in a large, competitive candidate pool.

Let's start with a dose of truth real quick when it comes to being creative on your resume design.

Having a colorful, elaborate design on your resume is not necessary.

Most recruiters will tell you that while some resumes may look pretty and catch their eye quickly, they're not choosing those candidates for interviews just based on aesthetics.

At the end of the day, nothing matters more than your content.

So if you're going to invest time into a good resume, make sure you're spending that time where it matters most: developing strong, impactful bullet points that showcase your value.

With that said, even with strong content, your formatting can play a huge part in whether your resume grabs attention or not.

That's because in a very large candidate pool, recruiters have to personally go through hundreds of resumes very quickly.

You may only have 7-10 seconds to grab their attention before they move on to the next resume.

Here are some easy things you can do to make sure your resume is easily skimmable for recruiters:

1) Use narrow page margins instead of standard or wide.

This give you more page space to work with and can help you space your content out a bit better.

It also can help make sure your resume isn't unnecessarily long.

2) Avoid large walls of text.

Have you ever flipped a page in a book and saw the next page was just one long paragraph?

If you're like me, you've probably thought, "Okayyyyyy, this looks like a good place for a bookmark for now and I'll continue reading later."

NOBODY like reading huge blocks of text.

Make your resume easier on the eyes.

Apply a "two-line maximum" rule to your bullets, meaning keep every bullet to two lines or less.

3) Use a 3-4 line summary at the top (not more).

This goes in line with tip #2. Sometimes I see resumes with summary sections that take up half a page.

How is that a SUMMARY?

Pretend your recruiter is a friend back in high school who didn't read the book for the book report that is due.

Help them out with the cliff notes.

You should be able to describe your career experience and value in 3-4 lines. If you can't, you should spend more time identifying your biggest strengths and areas of value.

A brief summary helps a recruiter quickly understand why you'd be an asset to the team without needing to read the entire resume.

4) Even spacing.

This probably seems obvious, but I've still seen resumes that have large gaps between some sections and small gaps on others.

Make sure your resume has the same spacing between lines, paragraphs and sections throughout the entire resume.

Consistent formatting is essential to making it easily readable.

5) Use section lines.

Section or border lines can separate each section of your resume in a clean way.

Ensure the line style is consistent throughout the resume.

Are you sick of tinkering with your resume?

Tired of asking people for feedback, only to receive contradictory opinions?

Want to take it completely off your plate and hand it off to a professional who has written over 1000 of them?

I’ll do it. Let’s have a call so we can discuss.