Formatting Your Margins And Spacing
When you format your resume you want to make sure that your leave enough margin space to allow for printing. If you try to adjust your margins and make them too narrow in order to fit more into your page, you run the risk of critical information being cut off if an employer prints it out.
Inversely, making your margins too large will leave your resume looking boxed in and squished. The general rule is to set your margins at one inch on all sides.
Think of your resume as a piece of fine artwork. Your margins should create a beautiful frame around it. If youre truly desperate for space, you can slightly adjust your top and bottom margins but try to avoid adjusting your side margins.
In terms of the spacing, keep your resume to single-spaced with a blank line between each section of your content.
Write A Work History Section With Numbers And Action Verbs
Use numbers when listing your accomplishments on your resume. Theyre eye-catching and show you have a history of delivering results.
Even if you didnt work in a data-driven field, you can still find numbers in:
- how many customers you served
- what percentage increase in sales or efficiency you achieved
- how much money you saved your company
Heres how that should look on a resume:
Customer Service Representative
Acme Inc., Hilo, HI / July 2016April 2020
- Provided basic technical support for clients on a wide range of company products, resolving issues at a 90% rate
- Received an average 85% customer satisfaction rating to date, 15% higher than company average
- Handle 90+ calls daily, with duties including signing up new customers, retrieving customer data, presenting relevant product information, and canceling services
- Suggested a new tactic to persuade canceling customers to stay with the company, resulting in a 5% decrease in cancellations
Also, focus on achievements rather than responsibilities. Bullet points that begin responsible for dont tell the hiring manager much about what you achieved for your previous employer.
Instead, use powerful resume words and action verbs that describe why you excelled in the position. For instance, check out these action verbs :
Administrative Assistant
Write A Standout Resume Headline
A resume headline is a concise, one-line description of who you are as a candidate. A well-written headline can grab a recruiters attention and encourage them to take a more detailed look at your qualifications.
Your headline is a short but powerful addition to your resume, often the first thing a recruiter reads. Take advantage of the opportunity to make a strong first impression. Its also another opportunity to include a specific job title or keyword that might be used to sort your resume in the ATS.
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Resume Summary Example For It Managers
Committed IT manager with 8+ years of experience. Seeking to use intensive leadership skills to improve efficiency at Jennings-Groves Medical. At Atalah-KQC Global, led team that developed a corporate auditing system that saved $110,000 annually. Designed an employee intranet for information sharing that saved 140 labor hours per year.
Add Your Professional Resume Summary Statement
A resume summary statement is a short paragraph or section of bullet points at the beginning of a resume that highlights your professional skills and experience. Your summary should expand on your headline and communicate to recruiters and hiring managers why you are a good fit for the job.
Summary statements are not ideal for all job seekers. If you dont have much job experience or are changing careers, you might use the space to expand on your work history section, skills section, or write a strong resume objective statement instead.
Note: Career experts rarely recommend including a resume objective statement, but these summary alternatives can work in special circumstances such as in the case of career changes.
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What To Leave Off
You don’t need to list your whole career history on your resume employers care most about what you’ve done recently.
In most industries, going back 10-15 years will be enough to demonstrate that you’re qualified. Detailing any positions beyond the 20-year mark could date you, clutter your resume, and likely won’t impress anyway, because they are usually your most junior roles.
Drop the year of your college graduation or other certifications unless their recency is one of your main selling points, as these too could date you, says Suarez.
You can also skip including a mailing address.
“Everything is online now. An employer will email or call you if they want to follow up,” says Salemi. Employers can also be thrown by the address if you’re applying from another state, she adds.
Save references until they’re requested. There’s no need to include them on your resume that’s limited real estate that needs to be used to showcase your experience and skills.
Unless your Twitter, Instagram or Facebook accounts are directly relevant to the role you’re applying for, leave them off, too.
And finally, eliminate pronouns, says Augustine. Resumes are written in silent first-person.
Choose Highlights That Align With Your Target Role
If youre ready to play in the big leagues, give yourself a solid advantage at the front end.
Look the part.
Photo of man holding pen courtesy of Shutterstock.
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Add Your Education Certifications And Any Other Relevant Information
There are other resume sections that may be worth adding, depending on both the job and your unique experience. These sections include things like education, awards and accolades, volunteer experience, and certifications. Keep in mind that your resume should always be showcasing your skills for that particular job, so anything in your history that doesnt support the image of you being a perfect candidate for the role doesnt need to be included.
Education
Its common to include your education on your resume, especially if you are applying to a job that requires a degree. If youre a few years into your career, your resumes education section can be minimized at the bottom of your resume. Unless youre applying in a career that puts extra emphasis on education , most job seekers can get away with providing only the following information on their resume:
- Name of Institution
Awards, Accolades, & Certifications
All three of the aforementioned things can be embedded in the work experience and skills sections of your resume. However, if you would like to highlight them, they could warrant a section of their own. Either way, relevant certifications, and honors will increase your credibility.
Detail Your Work Experience
The work experience section is the heart of your resume. Employers look at this section closely to determine whether your job history and prior accomplishments make you a promising candidate.
Thats why its important to detail not only your job responsibilities but also your competence in prior roles. The work experience section is your chance to show recruiters and hiring managers how you have added unique value to other companies.
The first things a recruiter looks for on your resume are the job titles youve held and the caliber of companies youve worked with. Make this information easy to find by sticking to a familiar format.
List each job in reverse-chronological order. Each job should have its own subheading that includes the following information:
- Company
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Elements Of A Professional Resume
Now that youve seen what a good resume should look like, and learned some basic formatting rules
Lets see what sections a resume should consist of and what order you should put them in.
The first four sections are the most important ones on your resume, and they comprise the resumes main body:
The meat and potatoes of your resume.
The way you present your experience on a resume could be a make or break factor in your job search.
This is where you have a chance to use resume keywords in context and show the recruiter youve got what it takes to succeed in the role.
Expert Hint: Avoid the so-called keyword stuffing on your resume. Mindless copy-pasting sections of the original job offer into your document may help you get past the ATS scan, but youll be shooting yourself in the foot. Once the recruiters see what youre up to, they may not only reject your resume but blacklist you eventually.
List Your Experiences Or Skills
For Chronological/Combination Résumés, List Your Experiences
Starting with your most recent or current job, list your previous work experiences.
- This section shows where you have worked and when. It also states specific accomplishments for each position or job.
- This is where content can make your résumé run over a page, so be selective about what you include.
- Pick experiences that seem most relevant to the position you seek. For inspiration, think of your full-time or part-time work, summer jobs, occasional jobs, internships, fieldwork and special projects.
- Don’t worry whether your experiences are “good enough.” Employers admire people who have worked hard in a variety of positions.
- Always start each achievement with an accomplishment verb, like accelerated, achieved, expanded, influenced, solved, maintained, generated, effected, advised, controlled, trained or utilized.
- Don’t worry if there are gaps in the timeline, but keep everything in chronological order, with most recent jobs at the top.
Examples:
Southwestern Writing Center, Peer Writing Tutor, Yuma, AZ
Camp Granite Falls, Area Director, Mountainville, TNJune 2013September 2017- Directed staff of four while supervising 20 campers.- Taught crafts, sports and cooking.
For Functional/Combination Résumés, List Your Skills
Examples:
Self-Motivated: Proactively organized volunteers to assist with distribution at the community food bank.
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Striking The Right Balance On Your Resume
Omitting information can make recruiters suspicious, especially if there are large gaps in your employment history. So make sure your resume doesnt have too much white space, or gaps in time, without including relevant information. If you worked outside of your current industry while in-between positions, for instance, you can account for it by including it in an additional experience section.
Still, refrain from including every little detail about your personal life if you took some time off to raise a family, or self-publish a novel, youre probably better off leaving that for the cover letter.
The resume is a high-level snapshot of your skills, experience, and accomplishments, Leavy-Detrick says. If a hiring manager has to scan through a really bulky one, theyre more likely to miss key responsibilities.
What Does A Good Resume Look Like
A resume gives you the opportunity to present your background, experience and abilities to an employer before meeting with them. A well-written resume should highlight your qualifications for the position you have applied for. In this article, well review what makes a resume look good and provide some examples.
Read more: Resume Samples and Templates To Inspire Your Next Application
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Provides Value Through Achievements And Numbers
Like your resume or CV, your cover letter should contain quantifiable achievements. A common mistake job seekers make on their cover letter is simply listing out job duties and work history instead of accomplishments. With hundreds of job seekers applying for a single position, you need to know how to stand out. Include numbers wherever possible to capture the attention of the employer.
The Amateur Graphic Designer
Unnecessary and distracting graphics like the ones in this example are an easy way to make your resume look unprofessional and bizarre.
Even if you think they look good, flashy graphics distract from your resumes goal of clearly communicating your skills and accomplishments. This also includes putting a picture on your resume, which is considered unprofessional in the United States.
Additionally, graphics can become a serious problem when applying to companies that use software to automatically scan through job applications, otherwise known as an applicant tracking system .
If a companys ATS software cant process the graphics on your resume, then your application will likely be discarded before a hiring manager even sees it.
Ultimately, keep graphics to a minimum so that your resume is clean, professional, and easy to read. This is especially important if you work in a more formal industry, like law or accounting.
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Customize Your Resume As Much As Possible
Dont use a generic resume for all your applications. Its important to highlight specific skills, attributes, and experiences you have that would be an asset to your new employer.
Employers want to know why youre the best fit for the specific job youre applying to. Tailor your resume to each job. Just make sure you attach the right version before you hit the send button.
Why Are These The Best Resume Formats
These three resume formats are some of the best options because theyre easy to read and the most likely to be processed through an ATS without critical errors.
Recruiters often have to review many resumes for a single open role. They can read a resume in a standard format more easily and thoroughly because they know where to find the information theyre looking for. For example, if a role requires a specific skill, a recruiter will look for it in your skills section included either above or below your work experience. They have a limited amount of time to spend reviewing each resume, so they may move on and assume you dont possess the qualification if it takes too long to find the right information.
Also, most applicant tracking systems will perform a more accurate review of your resume if the format is simple, straightforward and follows a few basic rules. The three resume formats discussed in this article mostly adhere to these best practices, though some ATS may have difficulties scanning a functional resume, and can help ensure that your resume is successfully processed through an ATS review.
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How To Write A Resume: Template And Tips
Resume writing can be a daunting prospect when starting your job search, particularly if it has been a long time since you last entered the job market or if you are looking for your first professional role. Your resume, along with your cover letter, is what a potential employer uses to make their first judgement about you.
Knowing how to write a resume will help you stand out from all the other applicants and reach the interview shortlist. Your resume must demonstrate that you possess most or all the criteria required in the job. Tailor your resume for each position you apply for by expanding on your experience relevant to the job and cutting back the less relevant parts.
Your resume must also get past any initial screening algorithms, or applicant tracking systems , which identify suitable candidates based on the use of relevant keywords.
Follow our tips for updating your resume or download our resume template below.
Resume Contact Information Tips:
- Include a personal phone number, never a work number.
- You dont need to include your full address but do add your city, state, and zip code. Recruiters often search for local candidates first.
- Use a professional sounding email address. Consider creating a free Gmail account for your job search if you currently use a more outdated email service like Hotmail or AOL.
- Create a strong LinkedIn profile and be sure to include the URL on your resume.
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Cv Versus Resume Whats The Difference
Today, a lot of employers and job candidates use the terms CV and resume interchangeably. Indeed, you may see just as many references to resume templates as you do CV templates.
Traditionally, a CV referred to a comprehensive account of your entire professional life, while a resume was a summary of your education, skills and work experience. However, in more modern times, the need for a lengthy overview of your career history has become redundant, with a hiring company instead expecting a two-page summary. At the same time, people began to use the two terms reciprocally. Now, whether you call your career overview a CV or resume, it has no bearing on your chance of reaching an interview shortlist.
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