The Resume - Format

Understanding the basics of a resume is important, but putting it all together on a piece of paper is a whole other story. Below is a guide towards the formatting basics:

Font Type and Size

If you want a recruiter to take you seriously, use proper font on your resume. Using cute font will make you look immature and not ready to enter the professional world. Stick with Times New Roman, Arial, or Tahoma and you'll be just fine. Font sizes will always be dependent on how much content you have in your resume. The more content you start putting on the smaller the font should be but keep in mind that it still needs to be readable. If you find that your resume is lacking and looking sparse; playing with the font sizes can create some more volume. Stick with a font size between 10 and 14. Anything smaller than 10 can be very hard to read and anything over 14 can create more void than you want.

Using Bolds

Bolding should be used as a way to separate sections in your resume. Every new section such as Objective, Education, Experience, and so forth should be bold as to help organize the flow of information. What you don't want to do is over bold items which will take away from the organization. The section worth bolding sub sections is the Experience section. Bolding each item in your Experience section will draw attention to those items of importance.

Bullets

I recommend starting your first resume by using bullets as a way for organizing information under the Experience section. Each item you list, either an internship or club activity should have at least 3 bullet items underneath. The more information you can list under each section the more information the recruiter will have to make a decision.

Spell Check!

Last by not least, avoid simple mistakes by spell checking and proof reading your resume over and over again.

As your resume changes over time so will your format, so make sure to update your resume and stay flexible with formatting. You can also use a resume template to start out as well and adjust it based on your needs.