What should a resume look like? Layout, fonts and spacing, with an example

A good resume looks calm. The reader can find your name, your current job, your dates and your strongest results without hunting, and nothing on the page competes with them. That matters twice: a recruiter usually skims a resume before deciding to read it, and an applicant tracking system has to read the same page as plain text.

You don’t need a striking design to get there. You need a clear order, consistent spacing and a type size people can read. The example in the box below is one way it can look; the rest of this guide explains what makes a page like that work, so you can judge any template, ours included.

The short answer

A resume that looks right has:

• One page, or two once you have about ten years of relevant experience. Our guide on resume length explains where the line falls.
• Your name at the top, larger than anything else, with a job title and one line of contact details under it.
• Standard sections in the usual order: summary, experience, education, skills, then anything extra.
• One font family, or two that are made to pair, with body text at about 10 to 11 pt.
• Margins of about 12 to 20 mm (half an inch to 0.8 inches) and visible space between sections.
• Text aligned to the left, with dates lined up on one edge.
• Short bullet points instead of paragraphs under each job.
• At most one accent colour, used for headings or lines, never for body text.
• A text-based PDF, unless the employer asks for Word.

From top to bottom: what goes where

The header

Your name comes first and is the largest text on the page, usually somewhere between 20 and 28 pt. Under it, the job title you are aiming for, then a single line of contact details: email, phone, city and a LinkedIn address. Leave out your full street address; your city is enough in most countries.

Priya Raman
Software Engineer
priya.raman@example.com · +1 416 555 0182 · Toronto, Canada · linkedin.com/in/priyaraman

Keep the header out of the page’s header and footer area of a word processor: some applicant tracking systems skip text placed there. Our ATS guide covers this and the other things that confuse a parser.

The summary

Two to four sentences directly under the header, at body size. It reads as a short paragraph, not a list. Our summary examples show the length that fits.

Experience

This is the largest section and the one people read most carefully, so it needs the most consistent layout. Each job has the same structure:

Software Engineer · Brightline Freight, Toronto · May 2022 – Present

• Designed and shipped a payment service handling 2M+ monthly transactions with 99.95% uptime
• Cut average API response time by 40% by adding caching and rewriting slow database queries

Title and employer on one line, dates on the same line or aligned to the right edge, then three to six bullets that start with a verb. Write the dates the same way in every entry: “May 2022 – Present” everywhere, or “05/2022 – Present” everywhere, never a mix.

Education, skills and the rest

Education is usually two or three lines per degree; our education guide shows the format. Skills work best as a short list or a few grouped lines, not as a paragraph. Languages, certifications and projects follow if they help this job.

Fonts and sizes

One font family is enough, and two is the limit: a second one for the name and headings only, chosen to go with the first. Use weight and size to separate the levels, not more fonts.

Element	Size	Notes
Your name	20–28 pt	Bold. The only really large text on the page.
Section headings	11–14 pt	Bold or small capitals, the same style everywhere.
Job titles	Body size or 1 pt larger	Bold, so the eye can jump from job to job.
Body text and bullets	9.5–11 pt	10 to 11 pt reads easiest; 9.5 pt is the smallest that stays comfortable. Cut words rather than go below it.
Dates and places	Body size	Regular weight, or a muted colour.

Choose a font made for reading on screens and in print. Plain sans-serif faces such as Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Lato or Source Sans, and serif faces such as Georgia or Garamond, all read well. What matters more than the choice is that the PDF carries the font with it, so the page looks the same on the recruiter’s computer as on yours. A PDF does that; a Word file may switch to another font if the reader doesn’t have yours.

Spacing and margins

White space is what makes a page look organised rather than crowded.

• Margins: about 12 to 20 mm. Much narrower margins make the page look cramped and can be cut off when printed.
• Line spacing: single or slightly more (1.15 in Word) for body text.
• Between sections: clearly more space than between lines, so each heading starts a new block.
• Between jobs: a little space, so each entry reads as its own unit.

If the page only fits with tiny margins and 9 pt text, the problem is the amount of text, not the layout. Our guide on resume length lists what to cut first.

One column or two?

Both can look professional. A single column reads top to bottom with no decisions for the reader and is the safest choice for very conservative employers and old application portals. A two-column layout puts short facts such as skills, languages and contact details in a narrow side column and leaves the main column for experience, which can fit more on one page.

What decides whether two columns are safe is how the file is built, not how it looks: a parser reads the text in the order the file stores it. Our ATS guide shows how to test your own file in a minute.

Colour, photos and graphics

• Colour: one accent colour for headings, lines or your name is enough. Body text stays black or dark grey, because colour on text costs contrast, especially when printed.
• Photo: expected in some countries and left out in others, the US and UK among them. Our guide to resume photos by country lists where.
• Icons: small icons next to contact details are fine. Information that only exists inside an image, such as a logo with your degree on it, is invisible to software.
• Charts and rating bars: a bar that says you are “80% at Excel” tells the reader nothing they can check. A line such as “Excel: pivot tables, XLOOKUP, Power Query” does. Languages are the exception, where a level such as B2 is expected; our skills guide covers when levels help.

How it should look as a file

• PDF keeps your layout exactly as you made it, unless the job ad asks for Word. Our guide to Word or PDF covers when to send which.
• Text you can select. If you can’t highlight a word in the PDF, it was saved as an image and software can’t read it.
• A clear file name: “Priya-Raman-Resume.pdf”.
• Print it once, or view it at full page size, before sending. Problems with spacing and alignment show up much more on a whole page than in an editor.

Common mistakes

• Shrinking everything to fit one page. Small type and thin margins look cramped and are hard to read.
• Three or four fonts. One family with two weights, or two that pair, looks calmer.
• Centring everything. Centred text is harder to scan; centre the header at most.
• Inconsistent dates and spacing. Readers notice a misaligned date before they read the bullet next to it.
• Paragraphs under each job. Bullets are faster to skim.
• Decoration that carries information. Skill bars, text inside images and icons without words.

FAQ

Should a resume be in colour?

A little colour is fine: one accent for headings or lines. Keep body text dark so it stays readable on screen and on paper.

Should my resume be one page?

For most people with under about ten years of experience, yes. A second page is fine when everything on it helps; see our resume length guide.

What is the best font for a resume?

There is no single best one. Any plain, readable font at 10 to 11 pt works, as long as you keep to one family, or two that pair, and send a PDF so it doesn’t change.

Should I use a resume template?

A template saves time on spacing and alignment, which is where most home-made resumes look uneven. Choose one with a clear hierarchy and real text rather than graphics, and check it with an ATS test before you send it.

See it on your own details

Every AlderCV template is built along these lines: at most two fonts that pair, consistent spacing, real text in a sensible reading order, and a PDF without a watermark (downloading needs a free account). You can start from the example in the box above or from an empty template, and the free ATS checker shows how your finished file reads to software.