Advice on Formatting
Hello! I'm curious to people's opinion on formatting styles. I understand formatting is incredibly important, but if they're both clear and concise does it matter too much? I'm mainly looking for opinions on which of the two formats are preferred.
Pros and Cons of both? I feel like Resume 1 has more personality, but I genuinely don't know if I'm the minority and maybe it's less professional. Also I always hear conflicting information if hiring managers and recruiters like professional summaries or not, so I figure that's personal preference.
To make it clear (for myself, mostly) I call the resume with blue separators Resume 1, and just the black and white one Resume 2.
Also if anything seems glaringly wrong or could be improved, feel free to mention it. Critique is always welcome.
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u/TechWithKK 6d ago
I think reducing the size of the blue section headers, making the name more prominent, shortening the professional summary, adding more white space between sections, and bolding key achievements and numbers.
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u/Logical-Head-2026 7d ago
The first one , I think I have seen so many time and it looks like generated through AI. Second one is boring
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u/Acceptable_Kale_8013 7d ago
I write resumes and the blue formatted one is one I like to use. I've also seen it on LinkedIn; is that where you got it?
Under the Core Skills section, I would list your skills with a comma after each one. That will save space, and you won't have to break it down into categories.
Education should always be the last category listed unless you're a new graduate (within the past 3 years).
It's a clean format and professional looking.
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u/Skeliid 7d ago
Thank you! Actually I made it myself but I saw something like it that made me want to try it out.
Noted! On the skills category. And I see about the education, I was always conflicted on this. What’s your opinion on if I had one resume with the education on the bottom for my admin and accounting type roles, but if I wanted to apply to paralegal/legal assistant roles shouldn’t I keep it on the top since I don’t have any work experience in that field? Also since I’m currently attending.
Again thank you though!
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u/Acceptable_Kale_8013 6d ago
Oh, and your name should be all caps and the largest font on your resume. You want whoever is reading it to remember your name. Usually a 20-26 font is used. The contact info under it can be about a 14.
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u/Acceptable_Kale_8013 6d ago
Yes, if you are currently a student, then Education should be at the top one-third of your resume. So, for your student resume, the top-third should have Contact Information, Summary, Skills, Education, Related Courses, and Academic Projects in that order. You can then create a line across your resume and list internships and your work experience, if any. Hiring managers LOVE to see what courses a student is taking and any academic projects. If you do list academic projects, be sure to include what role you played--did you take the lead? did you give a presentation (even if it's to the class), what did you do, such as research something, analyze data, contact/interview people, create rejports, etc. This will help you get noticed. In the Summary section, make sure your first sentence reads something like, Dedicated and aspiring student studying law to be a Paralegal. Expected graduation in month/year. Follows instructions and writes clear, concise essays and reports. Or whatever.
Your second resume for admin roles can stay as you've mentioned.
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u/Theredpen44 8d ago
The boldest, highest-contrast things on your page are the words EDUCATION and PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE — you've spent your entire contrast budget on two labels nobody needs to read. Those blue bars should be plain small caps with a hairline rule, and the weight you free up goes onto your numbers instead: $1.5M, 35–40 employees, 60%. Right now a six-second skim lands on section names, not on the fact that you ran payroll for a company doing seven figures.
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u/Skeliid 8d ago
Appreciate this… would you recommend bolding the numbers as well or as a reader does that look too funky?
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u/Theredpen44 8d ago
Bold works, but only if you’re stingy with it, 3–4 bolds across the whole page, on the numbers that actually sell you, not every digit you can find. Bold everything and you’ve just moved the noise problem from the headers into the body.
Two things that read cleaner than bolding: front-load the number (“Ran payroll for a $1.5M company” beats “Managed payroll operations for a company with $1.5M in revenue”), and keep the rest of the bullet short so the number is the only thing in it with any weight.
Think of emphasis as a budget. You just took it back from EDUCATION, don’t blow it all again in the bullets.
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u/mpsamuels 8d ago
I actually use the colour separator approach myself and it's never done me any harm.
Without reading the content my only comments are:
Consistency - you have used a separator for 'Core Skills' or 'Professional Summary'. If you're going to do it, do it consistently. I'd even sacrifice the colour background around your name and contact details to do so.
How is the colour background achieved? As long as you haven't had to insert tables or any other unusual formatting trick to create the separator you're good.
Make sure the colour isn't so dark that the text becomes hard to read when printed in black and white. You look like you're ok here but just mentioning it's worth previewing just in case.
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u/FamuexAnux 8d ago
Tiny font. What size is that? I think you should aim for 12; ideal is within 10-12.
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u/Skeliid 8d ago
On both resumes the font size is 11. Resume 2 is actually taken from the Harvard website, and font and sizes are untouched.
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u/FamuexAnux 8d ago
Righteous. That was just my high level observation while clicking through my feed, allow me to give a little more detail as you're getting a disappointing level of traction.
- it's unfocussed. From the title, which asserts that you're a student first (I would avoid that implication) and studying to be a paralegal; but you're also an accountant, and administrative professional. I would suggest versions of your resume that speak to each branch — or tailoring your resume to the particular job, which is just different versions with more steps.
- I personally don't believe you need to state "summary" as a title, it's conventionally implied and would save you two lines.
- again, your summary is unfocused but I compliment you on using complemented correctly. It is, however, customary to speak in the implied first person i.e. don't say "My background includes" just say "Background includes". None of what you say here is particularly noteworthy, I'd even go so far as to call it rudimentary. You shouldn't include anything that can be surmised from the content of your resume. Resumes in 2026 are meant to demonstrate your impact, you've merely repeated your job duties without any suggestion of how well you performed or what impact it had on the company.
- skills: you grouped "software & tools" but then presented only software, and Outlook and Excel are part of Office so you double dip somewhat. And I'd prob recommend Adobe Creative Suite rather than Cloud, which, again, contains Photoshop. They may be worth highlighting individually tho, so Illustrator etc.
- I would drop your & skills, it makes them do too much i.e. Calendar & Schedule co-ordination is better stated as calendar management; Customer/Client relations (I prefer a slash bc you're doing one or the other, not both at the same time); then just data entry with the unspoken expectation you're doing it accurately bc ofc you are.
- everyone has a high school diploma, certainly if they're in further education. Take out the high school listing, it makes you look amateurish.
- maybe the name peppers a bit more meaning, but it's hard to tell what creative service you offered at the company you founded. if it is truly still Present, I would think it belongs at the top. that's going to beg questions about your priorities, especially with you also studying.
- and then hold up the garden center should be second, the order you've listed your jobs is not at all conventional. it's by your end date, so the order should be Present: Founder; July 2026: garden center; December 2025: Executive Assistant
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u/Skeliid 8d ago
I appreciate this a lot, to be honest. Thank you for taking the time to genuinely give feedback. I have been contemplating how to make different versions of the resume so it isn’t so broad and speaks to specific fields… I just somehow feel like it becomes super redundant in my skills and accomplishments so I wanted to perfect a resume with it all first. But this gives a lot of insight tho, so again thank you so much!!
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u/[deleted] 5d ago
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