Résumé Tip of the Week ~ May 23rd

When writing your résumé, you should keep design elements in mind. One very important design element, which greatly affects the visual appearance of your résumé, is the use of white space. By “white space”, I mean any space on your résumé that doesn’t contain type. When used properly, white space will enhance readability and allow your reader to clearly identify qualifications. But if you rely on the default of the typed line font to dictate the flow, organization, and visual appeal of your document, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice. Readability of a document is a critical component of ensuring your résumé is selected for review by a recruiter.

In an attempt to better utilize white space, don’t haphazardly skip lines and increase margin size. Instead, one effective tactic is to decrease the font size of skipped lines—in order to create definition between transitioning information and allow for visually appealing white space, you can easily reduce the font size of empty lines. For example, when transitioning from a job description paragraph to a bullet point highlighting an accomplishment using a 12-point font, I recommend you skip a line between the paragraph and the bullet point and change the font size of the skipped line to 3-point. By reducing the font size of the skipped line, you’re creating the appearance of white space without wasting a 12-point space. Small adjustments to line size when spacing between differing information can greatly improve visual appeal.

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