Career Advice | The Art of Resume Design
The look and feel of your resume can be as important as the content
A resume is a reflection of the owner's professional personality. If it's
messy and unorganized, it can suggest the same in its owner. A clean,
well-structured resume, on the other hand, is an immediate signal that the
writer is capable of completing organized, coherent projects. No matter how
impressive your credentials, a resume may be thrown out if it's hard to read or
printed on bright, colored paper, especially when an employer has hundreds of
resumes to scan. So what can you do to clean up your resume and help it attract
the positive attention it deserves?
Simple lines
Keep all of your text in clean, straight lines. Be sure all of the dates on
the left side of the page, for example, are aligned in one vertical column. Also
check that the rest of the text begins every line at the same tab mark on the
page. Clean lines make a resume flow more smoothly, and allow the reader to
easily differentiate between sections of the document. If a resume is full of
jagged left text edges and uneven columns, it makes the writing hard to follow
down the page.
Uncomplicated font
Choose a font that is common and easy-to-read, such as Times New Roman or
Arial. The main font should be a serif font, which means the text is a style
with some type of decorative line to finish the ends of a letter (other examples
include Bookman Old Style, Times and Century Schoolbook). Studies have shown
that serif fonts are easier to read on a printed page. A second font,such as
Copperplate Gothic, may be used for subject headings and your name at the top of
the page. It is okay to use a sans-serif font in this case (a text without the
decorative line finishing the letters, such as Arial or Helvetica). A second
font makes the resume more attractive to the eye and distinguishes sections and
headings from the basic text. These guidelines are just suggestions. The goal is
to make your resume flow easily and not distract the reader from the content.
Choose the right paper
You don't have to spend a lot of money on premium resume paper. Choose a
clean white stock - other colors distract from the professionalism of a resume.
If you were submitting a report or project at work, it wouldn't be on colored
paper, and your resume should be treated with the same professional style.
A final review
It's common knowledge in the employment world that the content of your resume
should be held to the highest standards, but it's also important to remember
that the look and feel of the document is equally important. A clean and
attractive resume is key to bringing positive attention to your credentials. The
goal is to convince the employer to read the content, so organized design is
crucial. Use that left-hand alignment, change that crazy font to something a bit
more classic and throw out that baby blue paper. You want your resume to draw
attention to your fine attributes, not distract from them, and a refined resume
is the way to do it.
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