Following are 10 tips to modernize your resume. Good news: you should be able to complete this in 15 minutes if you know your way around your resume software.          

✂️ #1: Cut back your margin

If you’re like me, you were taught early that you needed a one-inch margin around your page. But that’s not true when it comes to resumes. My recommendation? Change it to .6 or .7.

This will allow you to create more space between bullets and within the document.

Which leads me to…

🌬️ #2: Give your bullets breathing room

I usually set my spacing at 3 points between bullets (and single spacing between lines of the same bullet). The reader will appreciate this because your document will be easier to read.

🖋️ #3 Update your font

If you’re using Times New Roman as your default, it’s time for a refresh. Times New Roman has been around forever—and you can tell.

If you’re wondering which font to use instead, you can’t go wrong with Calibri. To add variety, you can use Cambria for headings (e.g., Professional Experience and Education).

Now, it’s not necessary to use more than one font—and definitely don’t use more than two. That’s a design no-no.

🌟 #4 Kick off your resume with a title that pops

Your title could be as fancy as Award-winning Biotechnology Sales Leader or Global Technical Sales Leader & Keynote Speaker.

Or it could be as simple as Director of Global Security or General Counsel.

The point is to communicate who you are and the job you want.

❌ #5 Remove irrelevant statements

Remove words and phrases like objective or references available upon request. Both are dated and take up valuable real estate.

Worse, an objective statement shouts me, me, me! Marketing is about addressing what the reader needs. Not what we want. Our resumes are marketing documents, so let’s treat them as such.    

Re: references, it’s a given that we’ll provide them if asked, so no need to mention them.

🔤 #6 Use font variety

Make it easy for the reader to distinguish between your job title, company name, dates of employment, and location.

I see a lot of resumes that have the title, company name, location, and date all scrunched together and in the same font style, making for a challenging read.

If your role’s the most important item—maybe you have an impressive career progression—and you want to showcase that, then bolding and all caps work great.

Your company name is the next priority. Maybe use bold (without all caps) to set it apart from location and dates while distinguishing it from the job title.

Your dates and location don’t need much attention, so visually separate them (off to the right is fine) and just stick with regular (un-bolded) font.

Sometimes the company name is more important than your role. You may want to draw more attention to the company names because you’ve worked for some top brands.

In this case, follow the same principle as I described for the prioritized job title, above.

🎨 #7 Use color and shading

Spiff up your resume by shading your section headings and then use that color for your name and title at the top. You could also use color for your job titles or company names.

📝 #8 List (if you must) older roles without dates

If you’ve been working for a while and you’re worried your resume might date you, here’s a tip: add a Prior Experience subsection, and then just list your roles and the names of your companies—sans dates.

Since this section is separate from the main Experience section, omitting dates won’t appear inconsistent.

I had a client who worked at Kraft early in her career and was looking for a role in CPG. Since Kraft is known as a leader in CPG, we wanted to keep Kraft on her resume, so we listed it under Prior Experience—with no dates.  

🔎 #9 Find and replace worthless words

If you know me, I’ve been saying this for years, but I still see it from time to time, so I’ll repeat it here:

Replace words like responsible for with action verbs and data points.

Action verbs give you more ownership, AND take up less space.

Here’s an example:

Rather than:

Responsible for launching…

Try:

Launched…

If you kick off your bullet with a verb like Oversaw or Spearheaded, you’ll get to the point a lot quicker than Responsible for...

Don’t forget to include data points (results) wherever possible to prove how fabulous you are.

Read my thoughts on other words we can cut here.

💻 #10 Update your email address

If you still have an AOL or even Yahoo address, consider opening a free Gmail account, even if you use it just for your job search.

Need examples and inspiration for your updates? Check out my samples.

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