Spacing & Formatting : Ensure that the spacing in your resume is uniform. Check the alignment – you can opt for a justified or a left aligned formatting through out the document. Use underline / bold / italics selectively and with a purpose. Please remove unwanted underlining, avoid highlighting texts unless some one has requested the same.
Listing of experience: Adhere to a suitable chronological order to list our your work experience. You can start with the most recent job at the top. Don’t play mix and match.
Fonts: Avoid using multiple fonts, avoid using stylish fonts. It makes sense to stick with fonts that are easily readable. You can select from amongst any decent looking Sans-Serif fonts – like, Arial, Verdana , Tahoma etc. for regular professional resume. In case you want to give your resume a classic feel – you can opt for Serif fonts (like Times New Roman etc.).
Colours: Avoid using multiple colours, coloured fonts to emphasize any part of the resume. It normally does not help, and can get irritating to those reviewing the document. Stick to Black for most professional resumes.
Length: Try not to exceed 2 – 3 pages, while developing a resume. If you are an experienced professional, your resume does not need to detail out all your projects you did at the beginning of your career, or detail out all activities from all your Jobs. Focus on highlighting skillsets, key projects, your accomplishments, and learning’s.
Spelling , Grammar, Sentence Construction: In corporate most of us have learnt to live with our own versions of English. In fact most of us (including us) will get poor marks if we are evaluated on our language skills by a high school english teacher. So even though, you are not expected to be amazing with language, it make sense to check if you have not messed up the resume with poor sentence construction. Poorly documented resume definitely reflects on your language skills and thereby your ability to represent yourself. This may have a bearing on your suitability for most jobs as well.
Photograph: Do you need to add your photo to your resume ? Normally not required, unless some one has requested for the same.
Praveen is the Founder & Principal Consultant of KHEdge, a boutique HR & Business Process Advisory firm. Over last 15 years he has advised & worked with promoters, founders, business leaders, HR leaders in areas of - Business Strategy, HR Strategy, Organisation Design etc.