In your resume, formatting is as important as the content.

Good formatting makes your resume easy to read - you'll get through more screenings. A badly formatted resume can get you filtered out.

Not only that. You can spend hours and hours on formatting, and still end up with a very badly formatted resume. Then, your effort not only goes wasted but also works against you in job hunting.

So, avoiding bad formatting is a double bonus.

Here are five common resume formatting pitfalls. Navigate away from them if you want a professional resume, nicely formatted.

Pitfall #1: Using resume building tools to create resume

You can create a stunningly formatted resume using certain resume building tools available online.

These tools have pre-designed templates that let you quickly create beautifully resumes.

Some tools also allow you to custom design your resume. You can precisely place headings and text where exactly you want in the page. You can add colorful borders to make things stand out. You can use nice little icons as bullets. And you can have a uniquely charming resume.

But.. it's worthless. No recruiter is going to hire you because you have a good-looking resume.

Most importantly, ATS will find it hard to parse your beautifully formatted resume. You will get fewer responses as more ATS filter your resume out.

So, save yourself some time and money. Use a word processing software like Google Docs to write your resume. You can have an elegant ATS-friendly resume for free.

Pro tip

I have seen plenty of people writing their resumes in Microsoft Word in their corporate Office package. Remember, you will no longer have access to this Microsoft Word after you resign from the current job. If you keep your resumes in your corporate One Drive that also will be gone when you resign.

So, use Google docs with your personal Gmail ID to write resume.

It stores everything in your Google drive so you don't have mess with copying files around every time you switch jobs. Google docs is free to get started. And you can always buy more storage if you want.

Pitfall #2: Using two-column format in resume

You've probably seen this two-column formatted resumes.

Some time back I also used to write my resume in this format.

A two-column formatted resume looks nice and clean. It can hold more information in a single page. A single page two-column resume has its place - like a university student applying for a part time job at the local supermarket.

But as a DevOps professional two-column resumes are not for you.

A two column resume looks odd when it goes beyond one page. Also ATS may not wholly parse a two column resume.

So, avoid formatting your resume in two columns.

Pitfall #3: Using tables to format resume

Tables are for holding tabular data.

You can hack tables in your word processor to place content on specific places on the page in your resume. Most two-column resumes are also created with tables.

Tables are problematic for some ATS. If you use tables to format your resume, some ATS may not fully parse your resume. So it's best to avoid tables altogether in any resume.

Your resume should be a document. Not a table.

Pitfall #4: Over styling the resume with colors and fonts

A professional resume is best when written in a single color using one readable font.

Colors can make the resume harder to read. Also some colors mean different things to people coming from different cultural backgrounds. So, don't use colors in your resume, specially when you are applying for jobs in different geographic regions.

If you feel that pure black font is too dark, choose a color from the greyscale palette.

Also, do not use uncommon fonts to make your resume look unique. Such fonts can hamper reading. Sticking to the default font in the word processor is the best bet most of the time.

Use one color and one font throughout the resume.

Pitfall #5: Wasting space with default margins

Word processors leave out a 1 inch margin on all sides of the page by default.

There's a historical reason for this large margin. Old printers could not print the entire length and the breadth of the page. So word processors used to set this 1 inch margin by default.

But that reason is long gone. Modern printers do not need margins. Also, these days no one is going to print your resume.

So, you can use a part of the space that's by default reserved for margins. This additional space comes in handy, if you find that two pages are not enough for your resume. Without extending to the third page, reduce page margins by 0.5 inches. You'll be amazed at how much space it gives.

Note:

Do not set margins to zero. It will make reading hard. I have found that 0.5 inch margins on each side of the page is optimal. But, I urge you to experiment and find the best for your resume.

OK. That's it about formatting.

Have been in these formatting pitfalls? Cleanse your resume formatting and check out how it improves response rate by applying for a few job openings.

Happy job hunting!