Tips for an Easy-to-Read Resume

Once upon a time, curating a clear and easy-to-read resume was mainly about making things easier on the human being who would be reviewing this information right from the start. Nowadays, however, having a resume that’s legible and formatted correctly is the bare minimum candidates have to achieve in order to ensure their application will be read by a person at all.

With the rise in popularity of applicant tracking systems, it’s more crucial than ever before that your resume is clear, concise, and clean-looking. It’s estimated that 80% of resumes don’t make it past the first round of screening, thanks mostly to the filtering specifications of these systems.

But we’re not going to be focusing too heavily on how to appease the average ATS in this article — you can click here for a more in-depth guide on how to get past the first round of electronic screening.

Instead, this article will provide you with advice on how to impress employers once you’ve made it past the ATS. What catches the human eye vs what formatting choices are off-putting? How do you highlight all of your strengths without running out of space on the page?

Let’s find out!

Tips for Curating an Easy-to-Read Resume:

1. Clear formatting and Clean Design

This first tip might seem a little obvious — of course everyone wants to have a resume with these characteristics, but the question is how?

Well, for starters, you should avoid using templates that are too busy or colorful, and opt only for professional fonts (like Arial and Times New Roman). Make sure to organize your experience in reverse-chronological order and try to keep in mind that the average time someone spends reading through a resume is only seven seconds.

This means you need to get a lot of information across in a short amount of time. The best way to do this is to include a short but impressive career summary at the top of the resume. It should be between one and three sentences long, and it’s one of the key features that you should be editing according to each new position you apply for. More on that later.

Other than that, you want to use black text against a white page, don’t include a photograph or any hyperlinks, and have your contact information (email and phone number — no physical address) at the top of the page so it’s easy to find.

2. Lean Towards Lists and Bullet Points (No big paragraphs)

Most experts agree that it’s better to organize your resume using lists and bullet points instead of large paragraphs. Not only do large paragraphs overwhelm the reader, but they can also look unprofessional. There’s generally no need to go into great detail regarding your past job titles/duties, so if you find yourself including enough information to fill a short essay, it’s time to pare it down.

As we mentioned above, it’s also important that you’re tailoring each resume based on the job you are applying to. Having lists will make this easier. If your education and experience is listed out in clear and focused bullet points, it’s likely that information will be universal across most applications. This means you can devote most of your tailoring efforts to the summary and cover letter, saving you a lot of time.

3. Use Headings and White Space

Headings are a very straightforward way of organizing the information on the page, and it helps readers navigate. If there is information they’re most interested in reviewing, having headings will ensure that they can find those sections right away. Having headings will also create some natural ‘white space’, which experts agree is key to delivering a visually pleasing reading experience.

4. Stay Concise and Don’t Crowd the Page

The average resume length is around 500 words, but instead of getting bogged down by concerns of exact word count, it’s much more important that your resume doesn’t look crowded. A resume needs to be informative but not impenetrable. If your font is too small or it’s otherwise obvious that you have crammed in more information than is necessary, that’s going to be very unappealing to the eye.

Generally speaking, your resume should be between one to two pages long. If you are fresh out of school and don’t have much work experience, keep your resume to a single page. If you have been working for a while, you can spread your experience out onto a second page. Very rarely, if ever, is there a reason to make a three-page resume.

5. Seek Help from “Editors”

When we say you should seek help from editors, we don’t strictly mean professional resume writers. You can also ask for help from your coworkers, friends, or anyone who works in your field or has an impressive professional background. If you know anyone who works in hiring — that’s even better! Their advice is going to be invaluable.

Send your resume to as many people as you think will actually give it a thoughtful review, asking them specifically for tips on how to make your language more concise, punchy, and/or make the formatting engaging but not distracting.

Other Considerations

An easy-to-read resume is a really great place to kickstart your job search. It can truly make the difference between landing or losing your dream job. That said, a stellar resume is only going to help after you’ve found wonderful opportunities to apply for.

So how do you find those opportunities?

Consistently checking job boards and making sure your professional pages are fully up to date is always a good idea. You should also let everyone in your network know you are looking for a new job. Lastly, if you still don’t feel like you’re getting matched with the right openings, it might be time to enlist the services of a professional recruitment firm.

At CyberCoders, our expert recruiters are not only dedicated to helping you find your best fit, but we also go to great lengths to ensure you are receiving salary offers that actually reflect your worth. To learn more about our services or just to search through our carefully curated job board, go to our website today!