Best Practices and Research:
Clarity and Readability
- Professionally formatted resumes improve usability by 60% by making the resumes easier to read [1]
- Formatted and aligned resumes were clearer with a 40% increase [2].
Typography and Design
- Using principles of Typography and Design, we've been able to design the best resume format.
- Visual Hierarchy is the placement of different text and media content to establish a relationship between one part of the content to the other and helps in readability.
Heading
- A clear, bold name with established visual hierarchy, gives prominence to the name and improves the - chances of recall by differentiating from the crowd of resumes
- Key contact, location information with relevant online links is visible and accessible at the top of the page
- Links are in a muted shade of blue (#0070C0) that is not distracting to the reader.
Section Titles
- Using a formatting technique of increased character spacing for all caps section titles leads to it not dominate the page, but gently guiding the reader to the actual content.
Work Experience
- Name of the company is in CAPS to differentiate it from other sections, creating another level of visual hierarchy
- Designation is in Bold to draw the reader’s attention
- All dates are right-aligned to make it easier for the recruiter/hiring manager to skim through the experience and make a quick assessment of the years of experience
- Categories/buckets are italicized and used to organize relevant points under the respective headers (especially used for customers who have extensive experience in multiple functions/work areas)
- Bold is used sparingly throughout the resume to call out attention to the major points. Overuse can result in the reader only focussing on the bold elements, overlooking the other content as well as reader fatigue
- Accomplishment numbers are in italics to draw attention to them without being overwhelming to the reader.