Fonts and Formats for your Resume

What fonts and formats you use for your resume can make quite a difference to how it is received.

Your resume is a business document and should be written as such. So use a "business" font. Times New Roman or Arial are both accepted business fonts, and if you stick to either of these you will be fine.

10 to 12 point font size is good. If your resume is rather brief for whatever reason, then 12 point will fill the page up better. If you have more to put in than you can easily fit, use a 10, or 10.5 font. Normally, I use an 11 point font.

Times New Roman is known as a "serif" font, and the serifs are the little lines at the bottom and tops of the lines in the font. Arial is known as a "sans serif" font, which means without serifs, becuase it does not have these little lines, and capital "I" for example, in Arial, is just a straight stick line with no extras.

Which you choose is mostly a matter of choice, although if you will be faxing your resume much, the clean lines of the Arial font tends to come out clearer at the other end.

If you wish you may have your heading within your resume in the which ever font you did not choose for the rest of the text. Personally, I don't like this, since when I go back to edit the resume to target it for another position, the change of fonts tends to get mixed up and I end up having to format the entire resume again for the appropriate fonts in the appropriate places. However, when done properly, it looks just fine.

No more than 2 fonts through, per resume. And make all your bullets the same. It does no make some stand out more if you choose one type of bullet for the highlights and another for the other bullets further down. It is merely distracting and fussy.

So keep your creativity for the words you put in your resume, and let the format be simple, clean and professional.

And of course, what goes for the resume, goes for the cover letter as well.

Need more help with resumes and cover letters?
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Cover letters to suit each job

A cover letter should be unique to each job. A generic cover letter cannot possibly represent you fully for any given position.

Here are two formats to consider, depending upon how well you believe you fit the advertised job.

If you think you are a great fit for this one, and really want to have the employer zero in on that instantly, write a cover letter that has bullet points in the middle paragraph.

* with bullets you will draw attention to this text
* you can just list the main skills or experience you bring
* and make sure to include at least some of the skills requested in the ad

Your list of bulleted items can be as long as 5, but no longer. Then return to normal paragraph style of writing.

The other format is to be used if you either think you are just an OK fit for the job, or if you realize that you don't have one requirement.

Then you will just write a cover letter in paragraphs, highlighting what you think is most likely to win you an interview.

But don't forget the bullets when you see a job that a great fit. They really draw the eye and get read.

Write great cover letters with the help you can find here.

Need help with a professional resume and cover letter?
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Do you feel good about your resume?

Once your resume is written up, you should feel both comfortable and good about it.

A good resume will not only outline you previous experience, but also highlight your personality and personal qualities that will make you a good employee.

If you don't feel good when you read it, something is wrong.

Does it not outline who are you, but only show what you've done for a living?

If so, it's time to think about what you, as a person, bring to the job, other than past experience and the skills developed through that.

Or do you feel uncomfortable about it because it's gone too far in outlining how wonderful you are, and you are doubtful if you can live up to it?

Either way, it needs changed.

Your resume should outline honestly who you are a person and what qualities and benefits you bring to the workplace, within the bounds of what you are comfortable living up to. But it should highlight them to an extent you look at it and feel pretty good about yourself.

Gut feeling works just as well for resumes as for anything else. Don't go on gut feeling alone, obviously, but if you are feeling not good about your resume, it needs some TLC.
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Do have questions about Resumes & Cover Letters?

I will be posting answers to readers questions regularly on this blog.

Send your questions to:

resumequestions1@gmail.com

Resumes need action verbs

When you write a resume and cover letter make sure you include action verbs.

Activated, initiated, created: these are all action verbs. They state that you DID something.

Was taught, was given: these are passive verbs. They state that someone else did something and you benefited. Why should an employer be interested in you because someone else did something for you?

Here are a few more action verbs.

• accomplished
• achieved
• adoped
• adjusted
• advised
• assessed
• assisted
• attained
• audgeted
• calculated
• completed
• contributed
• decreased
• reparied
• delivered
• designed
• developed
• doubled/ tripled
• elimiated
• established
• executed
• improved
• increased
• inspected
• installed
• maintained
• obtained
• operated
• organized
• persuaded
• prepared
• proposed
• realized
• reduced
• saved
• selected
• sold
• solved
• succeeded
• upgraded
• won
• instructed
• trouble-shot
• uncovered

These are just a few to get you started. Remember employers want employees who take action themselves, not rely on others to do it for them. So use action verbs in your resume and cover letter to show the employer what you have done so s/he gets a good idea of what you can do for him or her.

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Keep your resume to one or two pages

How long should your resume be?

One or two pages.

Exceptions are:

• when someone has a great deal of relevant volunteer experience
• has written papers on their subject that are important to mention
• has the type of job where many short term projects are the norm, and consider it vital to let a potential employer know of them

In those cases, the resume should be written one or two pages as normal, and a third page added to list the extra information about the voluteer work papers or projects.

This allows the busy employer to read this resume as s/he would any others, and if it appears interesting enough for further consideration, s/he may then go on to read the third page.

The cover letter should clearly state that a third page has been added to give more detail on volunteer, papers or projects.

The third page should then be brief with headings only about each item. If the employer wants to know more s/he can invite you to an interview and ask you.

That, after all, if the goal of the resume in the first place!

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Accomplishments and Achievements: how to recall those for your resume

No-one can answer all these questions with strong stories. The idea is to read through them and answer those that fit for you and your experience, and write a short version of the story that comes to mind.

You don't need to memorize it, or write it down in detail. You just need to remember it and then afterwards think through and come up with the major skills that allowed to you do that thing.

Then in an interview, when asked about certain skills, or times when you did certain things, you will have these stories fresh in your mind.

Telling a story is powerful and gives better proof of your abilities than just a list of skills could ever do.

1. Describe a time when you proved your ability as a problem solver. What was the situation, and what was your solution?
2. Describe a time when you realized there was a need for something in a work situation, and then took the initiative to fill that need in an appropriate way.
3. Have you ever helped someone else, at work, to achieve a goal that was important to them? Tell me about it.
4. Employers love people who can save them money. Have you ever come up with an idea, or done something that saved your employer money? What was it?
5. Have you ever come up with something that saved time at work? Explain.
6. What on the job training have you found most useful. Describe it and the difference it made.
7. Have you ever received any award or recognition in the workplace, or for community service?
8. If you have had various different jobs in your life, can you explain how your next employer will benefit from this?
9. Describe a time when you took charge and showed effective leadership at work.
10. The workplace is changing rapidly and employers need employees who can accept and embrace change. Describe a time when you helped introduce something new into your place of work and the challenges that presented.
11. Tell me about time you were involved in a team, and how you contributed and what you thought about it all.
12. What is the think you are most proud of related to work, that could also be a benefit in your next job?

Create one liners from these stories to empower your resume. One story could well give you several one liners in a resume.

Here is great resume writing software to help you land an interview.

Now be willing and ready to share these stories, briefly, at your next interview.

Here is a great tool to help you ace that interview.

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What does the employer want?

How do you know what the employer is looking for? What does the employer want?

If there is a job ad, it's relatively easy as in that the employer will tell you what s/he wants.

But if there is no job ad, and you are putting together a resume to go cold calling on employers, how do you find out what they want then?

Well, one of the best ways, is to search online for jobs of the type for which you are looking. It doesn't matter where they are, you just want to find the ads, so you can see what skills and experience to highlight.

Even if you have a pretty good idea of what to put in, reading a few job ads can help you notice one or two more you hadn't thought of.

Another place to find skills and experience to highlight is in occupational classifications, which most countries, states and provinces have. However, one general site that can be used by anyone anywhere to get good information on what is involved in any specific job is the US Onet site.

This is huge site with very detailed information on a very wide variety of jobs and a good place to start looking for skills to mention in your resume.

More great resume writing help.

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References: who to use

Who should you use for references?

Ideally you should have 3 former employers/ managers or supervisors as your references.

You can have more than one person from any one job. You could have your immediate supervisor, the manager, and a coworker, for example.

Or you can have one person from each of 3 different jobs.

Employers usually like a reference from your most recent employer. If you are still working, however, they don't usually expect a reference from your present employer as they realize you may not want the people at your current job to know you are job hunting.

If there is some reason the obvious person at your previous job would not be a good reference, try to think of someone else at that place of work who would have good things to say about you.

If you have been out of the workforce for a while, or for some reason cannot use previous employers/ coworkers, you can use personal references. These are not as good, but if you need to use them, then do.

A good personal reference could be someone in any kind of professional position: a doctor, lawyer, minister, counsellor etc.

Failing that, just anyone you know who would be able to tell the employer good things about you.

If you have been volunteering, someone you worked beside as a volunteer would be good. You may not get paid for volunteering, but work is work and you were working as a volunteer so the reference is just as valid.

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