Having been raised in the suburban Midwest, where fashion trends appear long after they've been announced in Paris, we often had a difficult time figuring out exactly what was so "don't" about some of the outfits pictured. Many flaws, of course, were obvious—even we knew you shouldn't wear a slip that hung beneath the hem of your dress. But others were more subtle. There'd be a shot of a woman in some ensemble that looked fine to our untrained eyes (in fact, we had similar get-ups in our own closets). It was only after reading the explanatory caption that we learned that the outfit was a no-no because its cut didn't complement that particular woman.
The story is much the same when it comes to the do's and don'ts of resume design. As in fashion, there are some obvious pitfalls that, if not avoided, can mar an otherwise splendid resume. And just as you can use different shades and styles of clothing to play up your best physical features, you can employ various design strategies to emphasize your most impressive job qualifications.
In this article, we'll present the rules and tips of resume design, discussing such issues as type size and style, margins, and page layout. You'll learn how to incorporate these different elements into your resume in a way that not only creates an attractive first impression, but strengthens your marketing impact as well. Here are some trademarks of a well-dressed resume:
- Easy to read
- Lots of white space
- Neat
- Clean
It all boils down to the old 30-second rule: on average, an employer will spend no more than half a minute looking over your resume. To make the most of your 30 seconds, you must:
- Make your resume easy and inviting to read. It should look simple and uncluttered, with type and white space arranged so that the reader's eye is drawn quickly from beginning to end.
- Use traditional type and layouts. One glance at your resume should tell employers that you are a serious professional, well-versed in the conventions of business communication.
- Spotlight your most important sales points. Your most impressive and relevant qualifications must be highlighted with boldface type or other design elements so that they will be immediately apparent to someone scanning your resume.
Memorable, they are. And some are certainly strong contenders for the "Most Creative Resume" award. Yet, these job-seekers failed to win the biggest prize of all: the job.
Fun is fun, but when employers are about to invest time and money in a new employee, they tend to be straightforward and serious. So don't resort to gimmicks. They simply don't work.
What about the "creative fields"?
You've probably heard that if you're in a creative profession, such as writing, art, theater, or graphic design, it pays to spice up your resume with some "fun" elements that illustrate your talent. Well, we're not going to tell you that this approach never works. A woman in the interior design business has on her resume a graphic reproduction of a woven textile. She's been using this device since graduation from college 10 years ago, and she's landed every job she's ever gone after.
If you think such an element might be appropriate for you, use the utmost caution. Test out your idea on lots of friends, peers and professional acquaintances; if any one of them indicates that you might not be taken seriously, deep-six your creative impulse. And never let graphic devices become so large or powerful that they detract from your professional qualifications.
As a rule, you're safer to play it straight with your resume and save the creative dazzle for your portfolio. This demonstrates that you can be both imaginative and businesslike.
20 Tips for better-looking (and more effective) resumes
Looks aren't everything, but in the case of your resume, they are critical. Design decisions can make or break your sales presentation. So when you're fashioning your resume look, remember the following 20 rules of effective resume design.
- Keep your resume to one or two pages. In past years, the experts insisted that a resume should never exceed one page. This is no longer a valid rule. Today, one and two page resumes are acceptable. Employers recognize that if you've been in the work force for several years and have accumulated a variety of valuable experiences and skills, you need two pages to describe them adequately. So don't sell yourself short by cutting out impressive qualifications just to squeeze your resume on one page. But it should not be longer than two pages.
- Don't crowd three pages worth of information onto two pages by reducing type size, shrinking margins, and/or eliminating spacing. If pages are too full, you need to go back to the drawing board and cut excess data.
- If your resume continues to a second page, add the word "continued" at the bottom of the first page, and put your name and the words "page 2" at the top of the second page. In a stack of resumes on a busy employer's desk, your pages might become separated.
- Use a serif typeface rather than sans serif type. What is the difference? Serif types, such as the New Century have extra little strokes on their letters and little hats and tails on their a b c' s. Sans serifs, on the other hand, are un-embellished, plain faces.
Helvetica is a sans serif typeface.
The serifs help pull the eye more quickly and easily through the page, improving readability. Sounds a little crazy, we know, but there are people out there who study these things, and they have proven this to be true.
- Save fancy script typefaces for wedding invitations and birth announcements. Resist the urge to try out those artsy, 3-D shaded letters. Stick to traditional typefaces such as Bookman, Times New Roman, New Century Schoolbook or Souvenir.
- Choose a readable size. Body type (everything but the name header and section heads) should be 10 or 12 point type. Never go smaller than 10 point type. You may want to make the name header and section headings a little larger for emphasis; generally, one or two point sizes up from body type is appropriate.
- Don't mix typefaces. For example, don't use Century Schoolbook in one part of your resume and Souvenir in another. Stay with one typeface throughout.
- Highlight with boldface type. By making some words darker and heavier than others, you draw the reader's eye to them. Typically, you'll want to boldface such data as your name, job titles, the names of employers and your degrees. Of course, you'll only boldface those elements you want to emphasize in the reader's mind—if you want to play up your job title and not the employer, who gave you that title, leave the employer's name in regular weight type. Be sparing with this technique—use too much bold type, and you dilute its effect.
- Use all-cap and underlining treatments sparingly, perhaps just for section heads:
SKILLS SUMMARY or Skills Summary
- Don't underline words or phrases or use all caps in body copy. Research shows that both treatments slow and even stop the eye from reading. They are best reserved for your name and for section heads.
- Use italic type sparingly. In books and magazine articles, italic type is often used to emphasize a word or phrase. In a well-written resume, which presents information in short, punchy phrases, there is no need for this sort of emphasis. Never set your whole resume in italic type; it's too hard to read.
- Be generous with margins. Leave at least one inch at the top of the page, and ideally, use one-inch margins around the other three borders as well. Never go smaller than a half-inch margin. Large margins create a pleasing, organized, and uncluttered feeling. And on a practical side, many employers like to make notes in the margins.
- Use "ragged right" type layout. In other words, let lines break naturally, instead of "justifying" copy so that all Lines end at exactly the same point at the right margin. The box-like effect created by justified copy is too formal and often eats up needed white space.
- Single-space between the lines of individual listings; double-space between sections and paragraphs. This divides information into easily digestible doses and wards off the "sea of type" look, which is intimidating and difficult to read. If you're working with a word processor, you have much more flexibility in terms of spacing than on a typewriter. You can put 2 and 1/8 lines between paragraphs, for example, or use any other line-spacing increment you choose. That's fine; just being sure that you use consistent and ample spacing throughout.
- Use bullets or asterisks to highlight accomplishments. This not only breaks up a lot of information into bite-sized portions, but also helps pull out key selling points that would be buried if presented in long paragraph form.
- Limit bulleted items to two or three lines of copy at the most.
- Limit paragraph length to no more than four or five lines.
- Keep line length as short as possible. Studies have proven that it's easier to read information that's laid out in a longer block of copy with shorter lines than a short block of copy with long lines. That's because your eyes travel a shorter distance back and forth across the page.
- The best way to keep line length short is to indent all body copy about two inches from the left margin, and place only section heads and, possibly, relevant dates flush left.
- Keep it simple! Don't strangle your resume with a complicated design. A resume that is "overloaded" with treatments-bulging with italic type, bold type, underlined type, and four or five different sizes of types will overwhelm the reader and cause confusion. Your message is the most important element in your resume. The design is simply a tool to enhance it.
