Nine Resume Formatting Mistakes You Should Avoid
While your resume content will always be the most crucial aspect of your resume, do not neglect proper resume formatting. You want a resume that is pleasant looking. As someone that has reviewed thousands of resumes, it is nice to read a resume that looks visually pleasing. While having a visually appealing resume does not guarantee that you will advance in the recruiting process, it certainly gives additional clues about your care in putting together this important document - it speaks to your professionalism and attention to detail.
Below are nine ways you can make your resume look pleasing to the reader.
Keep Blocks of Text to a Minimum
When you see dense blocks of text in say an email, what do you do? Many people scan it. You look at the first sentence, maybe a few keywords, and perhaps the last sentence. You are trying to get the gist of the information while not investing a lot of time reading each word. Recruitment professionals are no different. They have a lot of resumes to review. Upon a first review, it is to get a sense of whether the person meets the qualifications. So how do you make this easier for the reader? Bullets point to your most crucial information. Bullet points are short, easily digestible pieces of information that represent one thought. They stick out so that they will catch the reader's eye. Make them short (no more than two sentences). Using bullet points instead of text walls will help the reader better pick out the critical information on your resume.
Have Consistent Grammar and Punctuation Throughout
Inconsistency in how you write your resume can show a lack of detail orientation. While one can argue about whether you should use the Oxford comma or not, whichever way you choose, make it consistent throughout your resume. The same thing with periods after each bullet point. If the bullet is a complete sentence, it should have a period at the end; if an incomplete sentence, none is required. So what do you do when you have a mixture of complete and incomplete sentences? Revise them, so they are all one or the other. Otherwise, it looks visually distracting. Also, I see resumes with two spaces after the period before the start of the next sentence. That was how I was taught, but that is old-fashioned. It should now be only one space. This dates you (yes, ageism is real). Plus, it provides a bit more space on your resume.
Here is a grammar cheat sheet that may help you as you write your resume.
Provide the URL for your LinkedIn profile but Do Not Hyperlink It
Suppose you have materials located in other places that may prove valuable to the reader, such as your LinkedIn profile, a personal website or portfolio, or other social media. In that case, you want to add the address of where to find it. That is why you would put the URL on your resume. Hyperlinking to it, though, can potentially cause issues. This is advice that might seem counterintuitive. Won't hyperlinking it make it easier for the reader? There are over 150+ different Applicant Tracking Systems (ATSs) on the market, and they are all set up differently. Unfortunately, not all of them are set up to do the same things. Hyperlinking falls into this category. Some ATSs can have issues with the hyperlinks, even causing the resume to be rejected. No one would want that, so it is best to provide the URL information without the hyperlink.
For email addresses you might have the same issue, so do not live link it.
Always Save Your Resume File With Your Name and Job Title
Proper naming of your resume file is essential, both for you and the person who might receive it. Here is why. If you are tailoring your resume for each job, you may have various versions of your resume. There could be minor or significant differences with each version. To keep each version straight and know which one you used for a particular job, you would want to name each appropriately. Additionally, suppose you are sending your resume to someone as an attachment. In that case, you want that person to understand the contents of the file and have it easily identifiable if saved somewhere.
Therefore, I suggest that you use this naming convention for your resume files:
<Your first name> <Your last name> Resume_<Position title>_<Company>
Text Boxes Can Pose a Problem
Text boxes can help the human reader find important information quickly. Unfortunately, when it comes to the ATS, which is often used to review resumes and score them based on a set of matching criteria, the computer reader does not see the text box nor the information it contains. So if you have information about your knowledge, skills, or experience in a text box, you will get no credit for this by the ATS. This could be the difference between getting your resume viewed or not. Therefore, never put important qualification information in text boxes. Use it for other information, such as a testimonial. By the way, the same issue also applies to graphs and charts. The ATS cannot read them.
Contact Information and Headers and Footer Issues
Contact information is vital in the recruitment process. You should include city, state, zip code (in the US), mobile telephone number, and email address. You do not need to have your full street address on your resume, as your contact with the company will either be via phone, text, or email, not via regular mail. Keeping this information off of your resume, which may be passed around to many people, can diminish the chances of identity theft and people looking up where you live to try to get additional information about you.
Many people use the header area in Microsoft Word for their contact information. You would think that this would not cause any problems, but it can. Some ATS cannot read the information that is either in the header or footer. So, be aware of this and keep contact information outside of a header.
Font types, Font Size, and Other Formatting Suggestions
What is the best font type for a resume? There isn't one. Many different fonts can do the trick. Some of the common ones used on a resume include Arial, Calibri, Verdana, and Helvetica. Other ones that some suggest are Century Gothic, Arial Narrow, Cambria, and Georgia. Whichever one you use, pick a standard Microsoft font that is easy to read on a mobile phone, since it could be read on their smaller screen. Try to stick with one font type or at most two, where the second one may be used for section names. As for font size, anywhere from 10 pt. to 12 pt. is easily readable. You can make the size of your name larger than 12 pt.
White space is always essential on a resume. Make sure you leave enough room on the top, bottom, left, and right sides of the page. One inch is good. You can go a little less if you have to, but no smaller than ½ inch.
Always check your alignment on the left, center, and right. I can't tell you how many times I have looked at a resume and have seen the alignment slightly off on the right side, especially regarding dates. Use the tab keys instead of the space bar to get this right.
Try to use conventional names for your resume sections. The ATS is looking for these names to understand the type of information contained in your sections. Using cute section names, like "My Wow Section", does not help the ATS parse the data successfully. Use section names like Professional Summary, Skills, Work Experience, Education and Professional Organizations, Volunteer Work, or Publications.
Cover Letters Should Be Separate Documents
How do you get people actually to read your cover letter? Some people think the way to do this is to add your cover letter to your resume's first page. If you upload this cover letter/resume into one document, doesn't the recruiter have to read it? Well, there are two potential problems with this approach. The ATS is trying to match resume information with the job posting, the adding of a cover letter may present information that the ATS is not programmed to understand. This could potentially hurt your match score.
The other issue is that many Applicant Tracking Systems do allow the ability to upload additional documents. The direction may specify what you should do with a cover letter, transcript, or other supporting documents. When you do something contrary to the directions, the hiring team can judge your ability to understand and follow stated directions negatively.
While a cover letter can be a helpful tool to explain your career story, it is not part of the resume and should be treated as a separate document.
Use Tables Judiciously and Avoid Columns
Tables are helpful in quickly formatting data so that it is spaced correctly and easy to read. So what is the problem with tables in a resume? Well, it depends on what information you are putting in a table. Tables can be a bit tricky for some Applicant Tracking Systems. Again, remember there are many different vendors, and how they read tables can vary. If you are using a table to display your skills or competencies, you should be fine, as they generally will be one word or a short phrase in one section of your resume. The issue is how the ATS "reads" the information in a table. It will read top to bottom and left to right. You do not want to have words in one cell of a table merged with words in a different cell to make a combined word that has no meaning to the ATS. A suggestion to avoid this is to put a space before/after a word or phrase. If you use a table to put in longer text strings, then this issue gets more pronounced.
Columns are also tricky for the same reason. Reading top-down and then left to right can mean information in the right column can get merged with information in the left column, even if dealing with separate subjects. While the human reader will not have an issue, the ATS can miss words or find some unrecognizable. That is why it is often best to avoid columns in a resume, to prevent any issues.
A Helpful Tip: Save Your Resume as a .TXT File to See the Formatting
A trick to seeing how your resume will be parsed by the Applicant Tracking System is to save your resume in a .txt file and see how it displays. If you have chosen to put in columns, what do you see? Do you see any words missing or something odd happening? With this information, you can go back into your resume and fix any issues before uploading it as part of an application.
While all these suggestions will help make your resume look good, none of this will help if you do not have the right content. Spend your time providing information that shows you have the skills, knowledge, and experience to do the job and demonstrate that you do these things well. Then worry about your formatting. That is the key to a resume that will get you an interview.
You may also be interested in What Is the Big Deal About a Resume Being ATS Compliant?
Shelley Piedmont is a job search coach. She wants to help job seekers put their best foot forward by providing the tools for a successful job search. If you need career coaching, resume preparation, interview skills assessment, or LinkedIn profile assistance, she can help. Schedule a 15-minute no-obligation consultation.