18 May Article – Why Having a Good-looking Resume is Important

Written By: Bradley Sona – Summit Staffing Partners

Over my years in IT recruiting, I have reviewed tens of thousands of resumes, and one thing that a large portion of the resumes that I review have in common is a lack of positive aesthetic quality. 

While the actual worded content that you place in your resume is critical to highlight properly (major accomplishments, responsibilities, awards you have received from your company, etc.), many people overlook the fact that having a clean, good looking resume is also a crucial factor. As an IT recruiter, I amazingly see resumes of graphic designers, front end developers, UI Designers (people who by trade make things look good for a living) who have resumes with sloppy formatting, uneven margins, spacing errors and various font sizing problems throughout their resumes.

Think of it this way, your resume is almost always a first impression and introduction to any prospective employer. Would you go into an interview looking messy, sloppy, wearing a ripped T shirt, as if you didn’t care about how you present yourself? Of course not, which is why you want the paper version of yourself to reflect who you are as a person. There is no “right or wrong” way to make your resume, but you should be cognizant of margins, font consistency, spacing and making sure your resume “lines up” properly just as much you pay attention to the content within your resume.

When hiring for my company, I do pay attention to someone’s resume from an aesthetic point of view, because I personally like to hire people who are mindful of the way they present themselves. If your resume is sloppy, uneven, skewed and full of spelling mistakes, it sends a signal to me that this person simply didn’t care enough to take pride in how they present themselves on paper.

Having your resume look great is an extremely important step towards making a positive impression, and hopefully securing an interview. There have been numerous studies that have determined that HR recruiters, and agency recruiters look at a resume for 6-9 seconds, and in that time, they are making an extremely rapid judgement to determine if you are a potential match for the position. The “look and feel” of your resume, are extremely important factors because it is a direct reflection of you and how you want to present yourself.  In those crucial 6-9 seconds that a recruiter is reviewing your resume, you want it to look clean and nicely formatted. Making these adjustments can literally be the difference between landing the job of your dreams, and never even getting a chance to interview for the position which you are applying for in the first place.

If you are an IT, Finance or Accounting professional, no one is expecting you to be a resume expert as well, but there are easy ways to do research and to view sample resumes which will help guide you how to aesthetically construct your own. At Summit Staffing Partners, we are happy to provide a free resume review and consultation to all of our candidates, and we always try to help people get their resumes to a point where they can be proud of what they are outwardly presenting when on a job search.