Choosing the right resume format

- Job seekers generally get confused when they're attempting to pick a format for their resume. Should it be fancy or just the facts? What are the best fonts to use? One column, multiple columns? What should the headers be? Graphics, no graphics? Should I use a photo, yes, no? Do I put the education first or last? Career objective, summary, functional resume? Word format or PDF? There's so much to consider that it can make you feel like your head's going to explode when it comes to resume formatting. And don't bother Googling all these questions unless you really want to lose it because you're going to get 14 differing opinions, some of which will directly contradict something else that you've just read. Isn't this fun? It's totally not fun for most people, but it doesn't have to be misery. You didn't make this investment, at least I don't think you did, for the misery. In fact, we have a hard-and-fast no misery policy here at JobJenny.com, so let's try and make this simple. I'm going to break things down here because the formatting topic has multiple components and depending on your specific situation, your industry, and your method of distributing this resume, the answer is going to vary. Let's put things into three primary buckets: bucket number one, formatting the resume for the ATS, bucket number two, formatting the resume for the human reader, and bucket number three, choosing how to order your specific resume sections. Let's start with bucket number one, formatting for the ATS, or again, applicant tracking system. You know what? This is such an important one and it's one that people get really confused about. If you're planning to apply for jobs via online applications at least some of the time through the course of this job search, you've got to format this thing with the scanning software in mind. And these systems were simply not designed to admire your custom design logo or figure out which end is up when you use some unusual format or a highly stylized font. And here's the irony, the irony for people who don't realize how impossible it is for the ATS to read and then correctly parse a floofed-up resume is this. The very people who are making the most effort to stand out with a razzle-dazzle resume, they're often the ones that are most at risk for never being contacted and that's because the ATS doesn't know what hit him when you send this super jazzed-up resume right through the system. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't work hard to make your resume look amazing, you really should, and there certainly is a time and a place to use that razzle-dazzle resume, especially if you work in an industry or a role that puts a high value on design flair or creativity. However, when you're applying for a job through an online application, meaning you're filling something out and hitting that Apply Now button versus just emailing the stuff or handing it over to someone who works directly at that company, well, then you really need a resume that's specifically designed to play nice with the ATS. So, that begs the question, what exactly is the ATS going to be looking for? Number one, it's going to be looking for key words. First and foremost, it's going to be looking for the key words that this recruiter or someone on the HR team has programmed into the system and told it to go back in and look for. Most likely, that person is making decisions on what to program in based on blaring terms within the job description itself, so this is the very first place you should look when you're deciding on which key words to include on the new resume. When you're reviewing that job description to find hints, don't look for things like detail-oriented or out of the box thinker. Look for specific terms like cross-functional team leadership, project management, cost controls, or even specific software platforms like SAP, Salesforce.com, or SharePoint. If you line up a few job descriptions and see that certain terms are common across all of them or most of them, then it's safe to believe that these are the key words you want to make sure are front and center on the new resume, both within the overall text and within a specific areas of expertise or key skills section, and we'll cover that more in module six. The ATS will be looking at both the context in which these terms are used and the number of occurrences, so be sure and make the ones that appear to be vital prominent and without being totally obnoxious or redundant about it, use those terms multiple times. The resume you use when applying for jobs via online application needs to be divided into sections, ones with standard headers. So, what do I mean by standard? I mean, call the summary section at the top of your resume a career summary or something similar rather than a little bit about me or stuff that I'm known for. Likewise, label your experience section something super straightforward like work experience or professional experience, for instance, rather than places I've worked or stuff that I've done. Now, again, if you're applying for roles within industries or companies that will value that kind of originality or creativity, you can, and in fact, you probably should, have a second version of your resume with catchier headlines and maybe a more captivating layout. Just don't send that one through an ATS because it might not have a clue what it's reading. When you're formatting for the ATS, you should also be aware that it's going to try and calculate years of experience. So, say you've just found your dream job description and it calls for five to seven years of experience in account management or customer service or whatever that thing is that you do, however, you only have three years of experience. How do you deal with this on your resume? Well, you can do a couple of things here. First, you could consider finding and endearing yourself to someone on the inside of that company. So, maybe you don't even need to submit your resume through the ATS in the first place. Or you could consider adding years to your experience if you've maybe done something similar as an intern or somewhere on a part-time basis throughout your career. Just realize this for now, the ATS is likely going to be comparing the number of years experience that this job description calls for against the number of years you have working in similar roles and this result will be a part of your overall match score. Likewise, the scanning software is going to be looking for the number of years you have with certain required skills, like Java or user experience design or Google Analytics, for instance. Thus, if you see specific skills like this called out as requirements on a job description and the job ad lists number of experience for that particular skill, you're going to want to make it clear where you've used these tools or gained that specific experience and when. And last, the ATS will probably be programmed to go and look for required degrees or certifications that are listed in that job description. So, if you have them, be sure and spell them out in the same way that you see listed on the job description. And if you lack a required degree or certification but really, really still want that job, you're going to need to find a way to apply for it without going through the ATS. In other words, you're going to be best served by finding an in at that company and then appealing directly to the decision maker. There are no gray areas with applicant tracking systems, it's black or white, yes or no, so for that resume version that you intend to use when you apply for jobs via online application, you've got to construct this thing in a way that takes into consideration how the ATS works and how it evaluates candidates. As for the format itself, for your ATS-friendly resume version, you should eliminate the things that tend to make the ATS kind of crabby and confused. Number one, graphics, pretty much any kind. That includes logos, photos, snazzy icons, and design elements, stylized section dividers, really, any pieces of flair because the ATS can't read them, it can't parse them, and it might overlook some vital information while it's trying to deal with them. It's just not worth the potential cost. Number two, special formatting characters. Simple bullets are fine, custom designed one, not so much. Leave the special characters off, even if you think the standard ones are a little bit boring. Also avoid abbreviations and jargon. Remember, when in doubt, spell it out for the ATS. Number three, multiple column formats. You know, I've seen some breathtakingly cool two and three column resumes, and these might be great when you're handing one of these bad boys out directly to a contact because people like pretty, they like original, they love style, however, the ATS is just going to choke when you try to put a multiple column resume through it, so stick with a simple, straightforward format instead. And if you want to see a sample ATS-friendly format, just click on the link at the end of this module. This is a Word formatted template that we've tested through our own ATS, so feel free to use it if you like the style and at the very least, it will give you a feel for the simplicity that you need for your own ATS-friendly resume. Number four thing that you'll want to avoid when constructing this resume is unusual fonts. The ATS just can't read them. Stick with standard PC fonts that are common and widely used, such as Arial, Verdana, Georgia, Tahoma, or the dreadfully boring Times New Roman. Now, if you want to go with a wild, pretty one, go ahead, but save that for your second more stylized resume, the one that you distribute directly to recruiters and other decision makers. Okay, that's enough said about the ATS, now let's talk about formatting your resume with the human reviewer in mind. We need to wow these people with this resume, too. The human reviewer is looking for many of the same things that the ATS looks for, such as obvious signs that you're qualified to do this job, number of years of experience that you have, and key words that match up to the job that you're hoping to land, but the humans, they're also looking to be emotionally moved. They want to be able to quickly detect that you're a high performer, that people like working with you, and that you're someone who will likely fit in around the place if they hire you. In short, the human reviewer is looking at both your hard skills and the softer ones like personality, level of performance, and cultural fit. Humans also appreciate visually pleasing resumes, ones that don't force them to go on some 20-minute research mission just to get to the meat of what makes you special. Ones that help them see almost immediately that you're worth calling in for an interview. All that said, when you're formatting for the human reviewer, you want to make sure your resume includes these key ingredients. Number one, consistent formatting. You need to make sure that you break up each section in a way that's easy to read, makes good use of white space, and utilizes bold or italics consistently through the entire document. If you've got inconsistent formatting going on, the reviewer is probably going to assume that you're either careless or lazy and these are pretty much the last things that you want them to conclude when they look at your resume. Number two key ingredient of a human-friendly resume is a font size that's actually readable. It always kills me when I see a resume that's written in eight or nine point font and typically this happens when someone is trying like mad to keep their resume into one page because somewhere along the line, someone brainwashed them into believing that the world's just going to fall to pieces if their resume exceeds one page. And so, rather than constructing a legible two-pager, they cram everything into one page in a teeny, tiny font with very little white space. Seriously, don't do this. You're going to annoy pretty much everyone and for those human reviewers that maybe don't have great eyesight, you're going to prompt them to bail out on this thing altogether. Number three ingredient is strategic placement of your most important information and we're going to cover this one in more detail as we work through the modules related to each specific resume section, but for now, realize that the humans are moving really quickly through dozens and dozens of resumes most of the time, so they need to see that your an obvious match the instant their eyes hit that page. So, with this in mind, you should strategize on which sections go where so that that reviewer can quickly see this clear evidence of how and why you're a match. An example of this would be, say I'm an engineer who now wants to be an accountant. I've just finished my accounting degree and I've been working as a freelance bookkeeper for a local business in town while also holding down a day job as an engineer. I would encourage this person to put the education section right at the top of the resume, as well as the part-time bookkeeping work. And we're going to talk more about this as we role forward here, but that's one example of strategizing on which resume sections go where. And the number four key ingredient of a human-friendly resume, work experience that's divided up in a way that allows the reader to quickly see the stuff that you're most proud of or that you consider your best accomplishments. So, for the clients that we work with through our JobJenny.com resume service, we typically create a sub-section within each job that our client has held that showcases select highlights or key accomplishments. We do this so it's very easy for the eyeballs to get right to the information that you feel is going to be most important or most compelling to this audience. Okay, that was a lot of ground for our first day, but guess what? We made it, it's the end of day one, Weekend Resume Makeover. But before you jet off, you may want to take a look at our sample resumes. Again, click on the link at the bottom of the page so you can get a feel for what a human-friendly resume looks like and an ATS-friendly resume looks like. And we've also got some sample templates in the bonus materials that you might want to use tomorrow which is when we're going to get to the business of constructing your actual, ridiculously awesome resume, section by section. Alright, so we're done for today. I want you to get out of here.