Do you ever spend hours creating or updating your resume, but you rush when it comes to the final formatting? Maybe you get tired of writing or rewriting it, or you are left with no time for that final formatting. If so, then this article is for you.

I am going to discuss two pieces of advice for giving that final touch to your resume. First, why it is important to format your resume and second how you can do so in simple steps without spending much time.

Let’s begin with why it is really crucial to format your resume. Its purpose is to let a potential employer know that you are well-organized and careful about details. On the other hand, resumes with unclear formatting make most recruiters or hiring managers perceive that you have a laid back attitude and, in turn, this would lower your chances of getting more interview calls. So, now you understood why it is important.

Now, let’s move on to the detailed checklist for formatting to make your resume looks polished.

There are five steps involved while formatting your resume:

1. Font type: Choose a font that is easy to read and does not take up a lot of space on your resume. Let me show you some of the go-to fonts and what each font looks like. Here you have 11 most popular fonts. I would say select any one as there is no one best font to choose from.

(i) Arial

(ii) Lato

(iii) Calibri

(iv) Helvetica

(v) Trebuchet MS

(vi) Cambria

(vii) Verdana

(viii) Garamond

(ix) Book Antiqua

(x) Baskerville

(xi) Tahoma

I highly urge you to use only one font and stick to it throughout your resume for consistency. And another reason is your resume shouldn’t give a feeling to your recruiters or hiring managers that you have copied content from elsewhere.

2. Font size: Your font size depends upon the type of font you are choosing, so you have to keep adjusting the font size until it looks easy on the eyes. The font size usually ranges between 9-12 for body content and 14-16 for headings and your first and last name.

For example, if you were to decide between Arial and Garamond, you would have to use 12 for Arial and 14 for Garamond as Arial is larger in size than Garamond.

But, if you have more work experience to show in your resume, I recommend using Verdana 9 so that the text is smaller. Especially when the work experience gets more extensive

Here’s how each font size looks like:

Led team-building events (Arial, Font size 12)

Led team-building events (Garamond, Font size 14)

Led team-building events (Verdana, Font size 9)

3. Margins: The top, side, and bottom margins on your resume page should ideally be the same size; around 1”. But, if you have more content to write , you can narrow your side margins to no less than ½ inch. Otherwise, a page would look very cluttered.

Here’s how you can adjust margins in MS Word:

Go to Layout Menu ->under Page Setup tab-> drop-down Margins->Select the option per your need.

The ‘Normal’ option gives you 1″ margins on all four sides of your page, while ‘Narrow’ changes all margins to ½”. If you want to specifically modify the margins to 1″ on the top and bottom but ½” on the sides, you can click Custom Margins at the bottom and manually input your specifications.

Further down, point 4 is

4. Save your resume with a meaningful name:

Save your resume with your

First and Last name_ PositionName/Primary_Skill set.

For instance:

Nikita Mehrotra_Talent Manager

Jim William_Java Architect

This gets really handy for recruiters when they save it on their system.

5. Submit your resume in a PDF format: This is really important for three reasons.

(i) Anyone can open a PDF file. Some individuals use Mac and others have PC. For Instance, if you have saved your resume in MS Word as .docx, individuals with dated version of MS Word might have issues opening it. Plus, if you are on Mac and sending over your Pages document to someone who doesn’t have an Apple device, might face a problem opening your Pages document. So, the safe bet is to save the resume document in PDF.

(ii) No one can edit or make any changes to your resume.

(iii) Saving your resume as a PDF file doesn’t show red lines under certain words unlike in MS Word and Apple Pages. This keeps content looking clean.

With that said, now you have a thorough checklist to get the formatting correct.

If you check off all the five formatting steps, your resume will get noticed and you will get more interview calls.

Here is the bonus tip.

If the text on your resume moves over to the following page just for a line or two, then try one of these 3 things to get rid of that extra page.

(i) Try using a different font type that reads well in smaller size.

(ii) Rewrite bullet points concisely by omitting redundancies, pronouns (I, He, She, First name) and articles (a, an, the)

(iii) Narrow the margins a little from all sides with no less than ½ inches.

If you still have any questions regarding resume formatting, reach out to me at nikita.mehrotra@therecruitmentinsights.com .

I'd love to help:)

Nikita