Resume Format

Formatting a resume is more work than you might realize and covers more than just choosing a font. The decisions you make about order, spacing and length may make the page look tidy, but more importantly they decide what a hiring manager reads first and what gets skipped.

If your jobs, dates and skills are already written down, this page shows how to arrange them in the order a US employer expects to see them. Start with the outline. The sections after it cover the smaller decisions about margins, fonts, dates, length and the file you send.

A resume outline you can follow

Most US resumes follow the same order, and a hiring manager reads yours faster when it does too. The outline below shows it.

The order can bend. Move a section higher when it holds your strongest evidence for this particular job. If you do not have much paid work yet, you should also include class projects, volunteer roles and campus jobs, set out the same way as a job. Students and recent graduates usually put education above experience, and career changers sometimes open with a skills section (our Types of Resumes guide explains when that helps).

Margins, fonts and spacing

Pick one plain font, such as Arial, Calibri, Georgia or Garamond, and use it from the top of the page to the bottom. Two fonts usually look like a mistake.

White space does as much work as the words. A page with no breaks looks like the small print on a lease, and busy readers skim it the same way. Leave a little extra space above each section heading, and keep the gap between one job and the next the same size all the way down the page.

• Margins: half an inch to one inch on all four sides
• Font: one plain font throughout, with bold for headings and job titles
• Sizes: body text 10 to 12 points, headings a step larger, your name largest
• Line spacing: single inside each entry, with extra space before each heading
• Color: black text, plus one dark accent color at most

Dates, alignment and consistency

When you choose a style for one entry, use it for every entry. That is, if one job title is bold with its dates on the right, make sure every job title is bold with its dates on the right.

Dates are where mismatches usually creep in. Pick one pattern and keep it for jobs, education and certifications alike. Years on their own work well when each job lasted a year or more; if any job was shorter, use month and year throughout so the reader can see how long each role lasted without guessing.

Describe your current job in the present tense and past jobs in the past tense.

How long should a resume be?

Let the evidence set the length. A second page might be fine after a long career, but a one-page resume will have the edge whenever the extra lines only repeat what page one already shows. Academic CVs and some government applications run longer by design, and our Resume vs CV guide covers them.

If you do go to two pages, fill a good part of the second one and repeat your name and a page number at the top of it. To trim down to one page, cut in this order.

• Early jobs that have nothing to do with the work you want now
• Bullets that repeat a duty you already covered under another job
• Skills your bullets already prove, such as teamwork or communication
• Extra white space from oversized headings or margins wider than one inch

File type and file name

Send the file type the posting names. If it says nothing, a PDF keeps your layout exactly as you set it, while a Word file (.docx) can be the safer choice for older application systems that pull the text out of uploads.

Name the file so a recruiter can find it again in a folder full of downloads. Your first and last name plus the word Resume is enough, and adding the job title helps when you apply for two roles at one employer. Once you have saved it, test it. Open the file on a different device, click every link and check that nothing moved.

When to keep the design plain

Two columns, icons, photos and skill bars can look sharp in a design app, yet they cause trouble in two places. Application software may read columns in the wrong order or skip words set inside graphics, and a hiring manager who opens the file on a phone sees a squeezed, jumbled page. Plain layouts avoid both problems. Leave off the photo too, since US employers do not expect one.

Designers, illustrators and other creative applicants have more room to show style, as long as a plain version is ready for online forms. The Electronic and ATS-Friendly Resumes guide shows how to test a file before you upload it.