As job seekers, we want to draw attention to key details on our resume—our name, educational background, experience, specialized skills, etc. Unfortunately, for many that means bolding pretty much everything on their resume. And not just bolding, bolding something that’s already capitalized, italicized, and underlined. If writing in all caps in an email is the equivalent of yelling, just imagine what all that overemphasis means on your resume.
Although there are no universal rules on what you should bold, I usually stick to the guidelines below.
Things you can bold:
- the name of your employer (generally only if well known) or your job title (if it’s something you want to draw attention to); you typically wouldn’t want to bold the name of your employer and your title as they would wash each other out.
- the name of the college or university you attended
- category headings for the different sections of your resume
Things you definitely don’t need to bold:
- dates. I really can’t think of anyone who would want to draw attention to a date although one job seeker did argue with me because she wanted to leave perfect attendance in high school on her post-college resume that was already three pages long
- your address (recruiters aren’t going to write you a letter and, if they do, trust me you don’t want it)
- anything that’s already capitalized, underlined, or italicized
By using bold sparingly, you’ll find that recruiters will be more likely to focus on what it is you’re trying to highlight. And, after all, isn’t that the point?
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