Get more interviews with your resume by making a few small tweaks

Do you feel that you are not getting enough interviews with your current resume? There’s no need to throw the whole thing away and start typing a new one. With a little bit of elbow grease and an hour or two of your time, you can get your resume looking brand new.

The formatting of your resume affects many things. Hiring managers often sort through multiple resumes in one go. Your resume should employ the right kind of formatting so that they can scan your resume within a few seconds. Here’s how you can improve your resume formatting:

How To Get More Interviews with Small Resume Tweaks

Fix your margins

Does your resume have different-sized margins on each side? Give your resume a more professional appearance by setting uniform margins on all sides of the document. Anything between 0.5 and 1 inch is ideal for a resume. Wider margins will cause the text on your resume to be converged in the middle of the page and narrower margins will have the middle of the resume looking empty.

Minimize the contact information section

Never include too many elements in the contact information section of your resume. One mistake we see a lot of candidates make is adding icons or graphics to highlight contact information. These icons and graphics will end up affecting the ATS compatibility of your resume. Instead, simply list one working phone number, one up-to-date email address, your city and state, and a link to your LinkedIn profile. If you are applying for a creative job, you may want to display links to your related social media, blog, website, or digital portfolio here as well. When adding multiple links, be sure to label them to avoid confusion.

Use distinct section headings

Your resume must be extremely easy to navigate for a hiring manager, especially if they are in a rush. Make your resume section headings distinct by:

• Using larger text
• Using bold text
• Using capital letters
• Using colors

Leave ample white space between resume sections so that they do not appear squished together. Another important thing is to use standard resume section headings instead of innovative ones. While innovative titles are quirky, ATSs will have trouble understanding them.

Use simple bullet heads

Have you used fancy bullet heads to draw attention to important information? Fancy bullet heads will reduce the professionalism of your resume to an extent. Stick with the traditional round or square basic bullet head when you create your resume. They may look boring at first, but they will look classy on your resume.

Ensure smooth page transitions

Look at where the first page of your resume ends, and the second page starts. Have you separated a job entry into two halves when transitioning between pages? That is a bad resume practice. Instead of splitting roles when continuing to a second page, simply move the role to the next page. If the first page of your resume has some space after doing so, you can adjust the space between resume sections to diminish the extra white space.