How to Type a Resume Correctly
Hiring managers rarely spend more than one minute on the initial look at your resume, and often even less than that. Your resume needs to be typed in a way that allows somebody to quickly find relevant information and get a sense of who you are and why you are a good fit for the job to which you are applying. Your resume should look professional, fit onto the front of one page if possible, be easy to follow and contain no errors.
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Instructions
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Set all the margins on the page to 1 inch so the resume looks centered.
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Select a font that looks professional and is easy to read. Serif fonts tend to be easier to read, but a clean sans serif font would be adequate. Also keep in mind that some fonts are not available on other computers and software programs. Set the font to no smaller than size 10 and no larger than size 12.
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Type your contact information at the top of your resume. This includes your full name, email address, mailing address, phone number, fax number and any other information the potential employer may need to contact you. Center your name on the page in a larger font and arrange the remainder of the contact information on the left or right side of the page.
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Type the major headings for your resume using one of two common methods. A chronological resume contains headings such as work experience, education and other relevant sections and lists the most recent experience at the top of the list. A functional resume lists skills such as management, writing skills, computer skills and other relevant sections and includes skills gained through work or education under each heading. Make the headings stand out by making them bold, italicized, underlined or white text in a dark bar that stretches across the page.
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List specific things you have done that you would like the potential employer to know about using bullet points. Each item should begin with an action verb such as "compiled," "monitored" or "processed." Do not write complete sentences, but rather short phrases that emphasize exactly what you did. If possible, include measurable results of your work, such as "recruited 200 new students who enrolled in the program."
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Format your resume with consistent use of bold, italics and paragraph justification. For example, some people may type all of their previous job titles in bold and include the company name and location in italics, with the dates of employment on the right margin.
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Run your resume through your word processing program's spell checker. Be aware that this is not guaranteed to find all errors in spelling and grammar, and in fact, most of your sentences will be flagged as sentence fragments.
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Read your resume aloud to ensure that you did not skip any words in your phrases or type the wrong word. If possible, have somebody else read over your resume to look for errors before you submit it.
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