How to make sure your resume is readable
Is your resume readable? Or is it a glob of text that fills pages but nothing jumps out?
Job search is nerve-racking enough but when your resume fails to even get a read, it can be more than frustrating.
What makes content readable?
We read very fast these days. Skimming more than reading.
When you present long sentences in even longer paragraphs pinned together without a line break or headline, your reader tunes you out.
Don’t let your resume reader tune you out!
Try this:
- Use shorter sentences
- Don’t shrink the font beyond 10-11 points
- Avoid using tighter line spacing, white space sells
- Add bullet points — but don’t bullet everything
- Make your paragraphs 3-4 lines not 7-8 lines
- Break things up with headlines
- Don’t be afraid of color done tastefully
Readable resumes need to sell your value
Even if you pass go by following all the tips above, your resume may still miss the mark if you write it to read like a job description.
I know. Everyone tells you to get the keywords in so that you will be found. So you copy and paste the job description of your last job or fine-tune it to fit the job you would really like.
If the hiring managers and recruiters wanted to read job descriptions all day, they could just read their own.
What hiring managers and recruiters look for is how you fit those words.
What did you do?
Selling your value will improve readability
I don’t know about you but I would rather read fiction any day than a boring text-book. Let me get wrapped up in the story and I can read for hours.
Make me read a lengthy diatribe that describes… well anything, I will put it down.
Your resume needs to intrigue the reader. Tell the story of what you did that made the difference to the company bottom-line, productivity levels, or revenue growth.
While it may not be a prize-winning novel, it still can show your work in interesting ways that are a far cry from job descriptions.
Write punchy. Let your resume be readable and motivate people to want to read it. Create a job-winning resume!
Then get it in the hands of your network who already gets your value and find that great new job!
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Julie Walraven
Professional Resume Writer
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