A Quick Guide In Designing Your Resume
First impressions last. It only takes less than a minute for your resume to create that lasting impression on your potential employer and hopefully win you an invite for that job interview. A powerful presentation is easily skimmable and should have eye catching emphasis on the important details that you are trying to share with your reader. One should tailor their resume in a way that its reader could quickly process the information contained within the document.
Normally, people read from left to right and then top to bottom. Knowing this, proper placement of key information is important knowing that your reader will read your resume starting from the top left of your document going down. Also, proper balancing of text is also important. Even though you know that your reader will read information mostly on the left part of your resume, one should not keep the opposite side blank. A well balanced design in your resume’s layout does not only make it look appealing, it also allows your reader to skim through your document with ease.
Usage of columns to evenly divide the text in your document is completely up to the candidate. Most likely as the reader scans your resume, they won’t go back up to the top page and read the second column of your resume unless they are really interested in what they are being presented with. If you are to add columns in your resume, be wary or the number of columns that you want to use. Ideally, 1 or 2 columns is most recommended to have an even distribution of text in your resume.
When selecting fonts for your resume, stick to the basics and only choose between either serif fonts and sans-serif fonts. Basically what you do is use serif fonts for the headings and then use sans serif fonts for the body or vice-versa. Don’t be afraid to experiment on which font combination is more eye appealing. Also, be consistent and never use more than 2 fonts all through out you resume to maintain that professional look for your presentation.
Aside from the use of different fonts, the use of italics, bold, capitalizations and underlines are also good options to emphasize important information. However, it is not a good idea to mix all 4 styles altogether. Be consistent on your chosen style and never use too much emphasis for it could make your presentation visually unpleasant to your reader.
Like it was said earlier, only a limited amount of time is needed for you to make an impact upon your reader. With this being said, go get a stopwatch or similar device and have someone read your resume. Give them around 20 to 30 seconds to read it and then ask them how much they had learned about you in a short amount of time. This method allows you to quickly know if you had made an overall effective resume in the way you had designed your document. If not, its not always too late to tweak your resume. Adjusting the columns, font size, or maybe change the combination of your emphasis tools or fonts could make a big difference on how you can effectively present and design you resume.
