Legible Resume Design Principles: A Guide to Less Clutter

Following on from the article outlining why you should spend more time on your resume the following is an article on guidelines to design principles that you can follow to create a simple and effective CV / Resume, without the Clutter.

Much like User Experience (UX) Design, and the use of CSS techniques to make sure that this website appeals to its users, likewise your resume must take consideration of design principles for maximum legibility.

Have you ever visited a website that had colours that didn’t match, ugly fonts, weird pixelated imagery and what not? Now, with that same website, what is the longest amount of time that you have spent on it? I’m going to guess very little. Much like this example, recruiters won’t spend much time on reading a poorly designed resume or CV.

1. Place a design focus upon your greatest and highest achievements:

Put relevant and important information at the top of your CV, or at the very end. Either one really - my personal preference is to place my greatest achievements at the top. Achievements can be anything you feel as something you were extremely proud of, within limits.This is due to the very nature of how humans think and react to list memories, only remembering the first and last items within a given list of any given event (Read the Serial Position Effect for more details).

Thus, make sure all your ‘weakest’ material is not focussed upon at the start or end. Likewise, make sure that the proudest and largest achievements are highlighted and visible to the reader, whether it be in a vivid colour, or a stronger and bolder font-face. If they skip this part and read the dull parts, you’re as good as gone.

2. Split your CV into categories. Eg: Profile / Work Experience / Other Experience / Interests:

Categorise your CV. Make sure that you maintain all relevant information together on one page, so for instance, the work experience is all on one page, and the education details on page one. Again, this does depend on resume limits, so if you are working with a single page limit, divide your resume into quarters or thirds.

Just make sure that your categories are commonsense and that the categories align with the needs and wants of the potential interviewer. Try to highlight only areas of your profile that apply to the organisation you are applying for.

3. Pick two to four colours, and stick with them.

Use web colour pickers such as this ColorSchemer can give you a wide suite of colour ranges that suit each other. Once colours are picked, don’t deviate from these colours - too much colour will be difficult for the reader to engage with. Also make sure you re-use the same colours for consistency, and I would even go as far as developing a CV that caters to the colour schematics of the organisation you are applying for. My advice is to pick more brighter and uplifting colours than just black and shades of gray.

4. Use Pareto’s Efficiency Principle: 20% Content = 80% Rewards:

For me, I’ve found success with a CV which has less words, and more bullet points. For each working experience item, make sure you have summarised points, which focus on results and metrics, rather than what your duties and responsibilities were. Try to provide 5 dot points per working Be careful not to over do the bullet points though. Reading a full page of points is almost the same as reading a full passage of narrative. On that note;

5. Include URLs of duties or roles that take too long to explain in text:

That is, if you have to try to explain a volunteer program and how you were involved, and the underlying heirarchy of responsibility on your resume, and it can be easily found on the website, just refer to the website instead. It cuts down on words, content, and space, giving you more to work with for other parts of your resume.

Finally, when designing your CV for your audience, keep in mind that some elements can be easily remove from it when you are writing your Cover Letter. Your Cover Letter can contain duties and responsibilities, as well as other details which don’t fit in your CV. Make sure that your Cover Letter uses the same color schematics, as well - Consistency, Succinctness and Relevance are the three main elements to consider before submitting.

6. A Resume can contain text AND pictures!:

Many people forget that when writing a Resume or CV, that you can embed and import logos, graphics and pictures! Not only does it look professional to have the logos on your Resume or CV, it captures the attention of the reviewer, especially when the company has high brand awareness. If they are aware of the brand, when reviewers or recruiters see a logo, they automatically will form an image in their mind of that organisation, and thus, an image of what you could potentially look like.

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