Be Sure your Resume is Formatted Correctly
Need help with resume formatting? I can help! I’m by no means an “expert” but as a consultant at Kane Partners, I scan and review hundreds of resumes each week. From viewing resume on job boards, to receiving résumés in my inbox, I see a variety of resumes each day that are in desperate need of help. I also format a number of resumes each day so they look more presentable to send out to our clients. I’d like to share a few tips that will make your resume easier to read and hopefully more likely to land you an interview.
- Formatting: some resume are easy to navigate, others not so much. There’s no need for headers, tables, or graphics. Hiring managers are looking for the information, not a fancy table to navigate through. Often times these tables/graphics do not translate into all formats.
- Fonts: keep it simple and don’t use fancy fonts that aren’t easy to read.
- Spell Check: I can’t stress how important spell check is! There is NO excuse for spelling errors!
- Bullets: a great way to organize your resume. Bullets are super helpful to sort out the information on your resume; they allow for information to be prioritized and are easy for the reader to scan through without feeling overwhelmed by a large paragraph.
Keep in mind, most resumes are sent to a hiring manager and put into a database or an Applicant Tracking system. A lot of these databases can’t read PDF’s or other non-Word formats.
Also to note: most recruiters or hiring managers view your résumé on average for 6 seconds. So keep the resume formatting simple, get your point across in the most efficient way by using bullets and don’t waste time on large confusing tables.