On the twelfth day of resumes, NAU Career told me…

ON THE TWELFTH DAY OF RESUMES,
NAU Career told me:
USE TEN TO TWELVE POINT FONT,
CLEARLY LABEL SECTION HEADERS,
ALIGN YOUR DATES AND TIMELINES,
QUANTIFY YOUR DETAILS,
DEMONSTRATE YOUR SKILLS TRANSFERRING,
HIGHLIGHT UNIQUE EXPERIENCES,
WRITE ACCOMPLISHMENT STATEMENTS,
Use STRONG ACTION VERBS!
MAKE YOUR MARGINS EVEN,
THREE TO FIVE KEY QUALIFICATIONS,
ONE TO TWO FORMATTED PAGES,
AND HAVE A SOLIDLY CRAFTED RESUME!

NAU Career presents…12 Days of Resumes!

Don’t get your tinsel in a tangle this holiday season while trying to build your resume! Turn on the fireplace, grab yourself a cup of hot cocoa, and read through our TWELVE DAYS OF RESUMES jingle to show every employer why you’re the best elf for the job!

For those of you who have stuck with us this far, thank you!

Today’s post is the last of our 12 Days of Resumes series leading up to the holiday season. We hope you have enjoyed our fun, holiday twist on crafting your standout and solidly crafted resumes!

If you’d like to revisit any (or all) of the previous posts from the series, you can find them on our blog. You can also find the corresponding caroling videos on all our social media channels (@naucareer)!

Day 12: Making your resume “just right”

In order to fit all of the presents in Santa’s sleigh, they have to be sized carefully and correctly (and with a little magic).

The same thing goes for resumes! In order to make sure all of your relevant information fits on your resume, you have to size things carefully and correctly (and use a little magic).

Although choosing a professional font is important, making sure that it’s the right size is arguably even more so.

Our recommendation? Keep the font size between ten (10) and twelve (12).

You never want to make a prospective employer have to switch out their glasses to read your resume — that’s a surefire way to find yourself in the rejection pile!

Keeping your resume font size between 10-12 points is a good way to make sure hiring managers can easily read it without squinting. Also, consistent font sizing throughout your resume can help you remain concise and avoid having an 8-page resume that seems too long and overbearing!

Exceptions to the rule

That said, there are always exceptions to the rule, so we thought we’d cover a few.

Name and contact information

You want to make sure that your resume is easily identifiable as yours — that’s why we recommend putting your name and contact information at the top of the document. You may even increase the font size up to 28-32 for headers!

Try adjusting the document margins and line spacing options to create a header that scales appropriately with the rest of your content.

Section headers

In an effort to remain visually pleasing to whoever is reviewing your resume, having your sections clearly separated from your content is a great strategy.

An easy way to do this is by increasing the font size of your section headers up by a few points, no larger than size 16, and including horizontal lines or other visual embellishments.

Other ways to focus attention

Besides increasing or decreasing font size, you can guide the hiring manager’s eye along with your resume by utilizing other options like bolding, italicizing, underlining, and even changing the font color.

For example, if you want to draw someone’s eye to a certain part of an accomplishment statement, you can bold the keywords:

I would make a font joke but I’m not bold enough…

If you co-wrote a paper or co-facilitated a workshop, you can even bold your own name so it stands out from the other authors!

See below for an example of how one an alumnus did this for his assessment fair poster:

Likewise, you can use italics to communicate emphasis or include some emotionality in words that otherwise may not have any:

There is nothing wrong with the tower in Pisa. It was just built in italics.

Get creative and have fun with it! You can even use combinations of the different formatting options to come up with something uniquely you!

Remember: Small details, like choosing the right font size, is like the bow on top of your resume!

For more information or to see some examples, be sure to visit our website or schedule an appointment via Handshake! Happy holidays!

– NAU Career Development!