formatting tips for resume

Resume Formatting

The purpose of a resume is to tell the story of your experiences as they relate to a particular job description. Refer to  our sample resumes  for formatting advice and inspiration. It’s important that your resume reflects your personality and grabs the employer’s attention. Resume standards can differ across industries, so it’s a good idea to review industry-specific examples.

Resume Format Tips

• One page . Keep your resume to one page. Save it as a PDF or print it on resume paper.
• Be concise . Use brief statements in the form of bullets or sentences.
• Keep font size to 10, 11, or 12 points and set margins to no less than 0.5 inch all around.
• Do not use the word “I” or other first-person pronouns.
• Use past tense in describing past positions and use present tense for your current position(s).
• Be consistent in your use of punctuation throughout the document. For instance, either use periods at the end of all your bullets or not.
• Use bold, italics and underlining formatting to break up the text and make the document easy to read.

Resume Content

• See our action verbs page to find verbs that are more descriptive than common verbs such as “do/did,” “completed,” “responsible for,” etc.
• Customize . Tailor your resume to focus on the work and extracurricular experiences that are most relevant to the job or industry you are targeting.
• Include multiple titles and responsibilities if you had multiple roles at one organization.
• Do not lie , exaggerate, or include something that you would not want to discuss in an interview.
• Avoid Georgetown jargon and acronyms without first spelling them out (e.g., GUSA, NHS, GPB).
• Do not include personal data (e.g., birth date, marital status, photograph). If you are applying to a position in another country, find out what the resume expectations are for that country.

Last-Minute Resume Checklist

• Create a log of the applications you send. Include position descriptions, dates, contact information, follow-up date (if appropriate), and notes on follow-up communications.
• Have someone else look it over . Do not rely on spell-check! Remember — review the names of companies and people.
• Save documents as PDFs with appropriate names. Example: M.CrawfordEventPlannerResume.
• Make sure your outgoing voicemail greeting for the phone number you list on your resume is professional .
• Is your email address professional? (for instance, no “[email protected]”)?
• Write a relevant email subject line,  such as “Application for Event Planner Position #4420”?
• Print all documents on neutral resume paper and use a laser printer if you’re delivering it as a hard copy.

Resume and Cover Letter Templates

Sample resume formatting, step 1: header.

• Your name should be bold and in a larger font than the rest of the resume.
• Below your name, list your current mailing address, phone number, and the email address you most frequently use. You may use your permanent mailing address if you wish.

Step 2: Education

• List your most recent education first. Indicate your university, your school (e.g., Georgetown University College of Arts & Sciences), major, minor(s), and graduation month and year.
• Include your GPA on your resume. You may also include the GPA for your major and minor, especially if they are higher than your cumulative GPA. If you are hesitating to include GPA, connect with a member of our staff.

Step 3: Experience

The experience section of your resume is where you list and describe your experiences that are most relevant to the position you’re applying for. Often those experiences will be jobs and internships. But they don’t need to be. They might also be extra-curricular activities or coursework. 

List and describe your experiences in reverse chronological order (most recent first).

You might divide your experiences into two different categories if doing so helps you make a stronger case for your candidacy.

For instance, you might devote a section of your resume to your experiences in a particular industry. Instead of one “Experiences” section, you could create a section called “Relevant Experience” and another “Additional Experience.” Or you might get even more specific and call a section something like “International Relations Experience” and another “Additional Experience.” This can help direct an employer’s attention to the experiences you most want them to pay attention to.

If you create multiple experience sections on your resume, list the entries in each section in reverse chronological order (most recent first).

For each entry in your experiences section: 

• Create a header that includes the name of the organization, the location of the experience, dates, and your position title.
• Write three or four sentences describing the work you did. Think about what you accomplished or contributed during the experience. Avoid weak verbs such as “did” or “worked.” Avoid passive constructions, such as “responsibilities include.” If you want help finding strong action verbs to improve the writing in your resume, see our action verbs page .

Download a sample chronological resume

Download a sample combination resume, step 4: activities.

This is the place to list your extra-curricular activities, such as sports, on-campus involvement, or volunteer experience. You may provide a brief description of accomplishments and responsibilities for each.

Step 5: Skills

Important skills to include are:

• Languages–be sure not to overstate (basic, intermediate, advanced or fluent).
• Technical skills–list specific and relevant software with which you are familiar (e.g., MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, Adobe Photoshop, SPSS).
• Any training or certification programs you completed that would be relevant to the job.
• Social media and web technologies, if applicable (e.g., Facebook, X, WordPress, Pinterest).
• You may list the headings under two separate subtitles (“Extracurricular Activities” and “Skills”) or one (“Skills & Activities”) if you need to save space.

12 Resume Formatting Tips from a Professional

By Biron Clark

Published: November 8, 2023

Biron Clark

Writer & Career Coach

Nothing shuts down your job search faster than a resume with formatting issues.

So I invited professional resume writer Virginia Franco to share how to format a resume step-by-step.

Here is her exact method for how she formats and edits/proofreads a resume before sending it out.

How to Format a Resume:

1. contact information.

Most people include name, phone number, and email. You can also include LinkedIn . Make sure all of your information is correct. Are the hyperlinks all active and pointed to the correct place? Are the right letters capitalized? Etc.

Commit to a consistent comma strategy. This means you must choose between keeping or omitting that last comma in a list (bananas, apples and oranges) OR (bananas, apples, and oranges). Both ways are considered correct– just make sure you stick to whichever way you prefer.

3. Text Spacing

Make sure your text spacing is consistent. This is an important piece of how to format your resume. Even though it might seem like a small detail it can distract the hiring manager.  So decide if you’re going to have 1 or 2 spaces after each period. Also make sure you have the same distance between all bullet points and paragraphs.

For the number of spaces after each period, I recommend having 1 space, not 2. It’s seen as more modern and is easier to read on a computer.

Try to pick one font and make sure you use it throughout the entire document. If you insist, you can use a separate font for the headings. But that’s it. Don’t use more than this when you format your resume. 

Use a font size between 10-12 and a sans-serif font like calibri or arial. These fonts are designed to look great on a computer, which is how more and most recruiters and hiring managers are going to read your resume when you send it in.

For resume section titles (i.e., “Experience”, “Education”), you can use a slightly larger font size (13-14). Make sure you are being consistent throughout the whole document. Don’t use size 13 in one part of your resume, and then size 14 later. It’s going to get noticed, and not in the way you want.

5. Capitalization

Make sure you stay consistent with how you’re capitalizing words. When it comes to names of departments (IT, Finance, Legal, etc.), I recommend capitalizing it because it’ll make the words stand out to the reader.

Make sure your resume’s margins are the same size on the right and left sides. Then make sure the top and bottom are the same too. I recommend using a margin between 1/2 an inch to an inch all the way around.

Margins might seem like a small thing, but every detail counts when formatting your resume, and if the document is unpleasant or difficult to read, it could cost you job interviews. Details matter when learning how to format a resume. 

7. Alignment

When setting up or proofreading your document, make sure your tab, bullet, and line alignment is constant throughout. Especially if you’re using MS Word, some weird things can happen and you might have different alignment in different sections if you’re not careful. This happens with spacing too (mentioned earlier)

Tip: Aligning any bullet points to the left rather than indenting will help you get more text on the page – and reads well during an online read.

8. Consistency

Is the format you have chosen to highlight your employment dates, job titles and company names consistent (i.e. underlines, italics, caps, bolding)?

It should follow the same pattern in every job you list. Or every piece of education you list, etc. Pick one format/layout and stick to it.

Is there a period at the end of each sentence? Take a close look at bulleted lists too and make sure you were consistent (period or no period is fine, just decide and do it that way 100%). I like to *not* use periods after each bullet point because it encourages the reader to keep going. It makes it feel “smoother” to read. But take a look at it both ways and decide which you like best.

10. Page Numbering

Does your two-page resume have a page number? It should. If the hiring manager or recruiter prints your resume and the pages get shuffled, you want to be sure they know the right order to read your resume. You also want them to realize if they’re missing a page (so use “page 1/2”, “page 2/2”, etc).

As a side note, for most people, a one-page resume should be sufficient. If you have less than 7-10 years of relevant work experience, keep it to one page.

If you’re having trouble knowing what to keep and what to eliminate, here’s an in-depth guide to what to put on a resume .

11. Check Your Facts

If you lie on your resume , it can (and probably will) come back to haunt you in the interview. Make sure your facts are straight. Something as simple as saying “Expert in Excel” can cost you the job, if they ask why you said you’re an expert and you’re unable to clearly tell them about your expert-level abilities.

So don’t put any claims or facts that you can’t back up or talk comfortably about when it comes time to answer questions in your interview .

12. Show It To Somebody Else

Once you’ve completed steps 1-11, I recommend getting a second set of eyes to review and proofread your resume one last time.

If you insist on proofreading your own resume, I’d recommend changing it into an unusual font. This sounds odd, but helps your eyes catch typos and mistakes. Or read from the bottom to the top. Those are both effective ways to proofread your own resume during the editing/formatting process. 

Doing that, plus following the resume formatting tips above, will give you the best shot at eliminating typos and errors so you can get more interviews in today’s job market.

If you have a question about how to format your resume, leave a comment below!

The following expert contributed to this post:

Virginia Franco is a multi-certified executive resume and LinkedIn writer and founder of Virginia Franco Resumes. She offers customized executive resume and LinkedIn profile writing services for the 21st century job seeker.

About the Author

Read more articles by Biron Clark

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Great tips! Consistency is key. I find the most common error I come across seems to be those darn periods. Going back to consistency, either make all bullet with them or without them! :)

Very true! There isn’t always one “right” way to do things when it comes to formatting a resume. But you should pick one approach and stick with it. One font and size for headers. One way of writing bullets (like you said).

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