We can talk for many hours over the content to put into each resume bullet point. Action verbs, achievements, etc… You can find much information on those topics on this website and others. What we’re going to go over today is how the bullet points on your resume should be formatted.

Yes, the format of your bullet points impacts how well they are got by the employer. Remember, the primary purpose of the bullet point on a resume is to draw the eye of the employer and use more powerful language. The issue is that if you format these bullet points poorly, you negatively impact how well they draw the employer’s eye. The best way to indicate this is with an example.

Example #1: One Sentence Too Long

Let’s say you’ve three accomplishments you need to list on your resume, but one of these achievements will take over a line to explain. There are 2 ways this can appear on your resume:

• Motivated a staff of fifteen to riot against the company.
• Organized the greatest company-wide walkout in US history and possibly around the whole universe because we rock.
• Destroyed the whole economy in the state of Michigan.

Compare that to this:

• Motivated a staff of fifteen to riot against the company.
• Destroyed the complete economy in the state of Michigan.
• Organized the greatest company-wide walkout in US history and possibly around the whole universe because we rock.

It might not be clear at first, but if you take a step back and look at these bullet points, the second instance draws the eye much better. That is because the term “destroyed” blends in with the second bullet point in the first instance. It draws less attention, and you need every bullet point to draw the eye of the employer. Also, having the three bullets together makes them look much cleaner. Even though the difference is small, this way of formatting your bullet points is better.

In deal case, all of your bullet points should fit on one line. Although, if you’ve a specifically long sentence, try to move that sentence to the end of the bullets, so that it doesn’t cause another bullet point to blend with the end of the sentence.

Example #2: Line Length

This is a lot more optional, and should be based completely on your own personal discretion. Although, human beings such as patterns, and they dislike awkwardness. Compare these two again:

• This is a much longer sentence in comparison to two sentences that are going to come after.
• This is a short sentence.
• This is a medium sized sentence that is greater than #2.

Or:

• This is a short sentence.
• This is a medium sized sentence that is bigger than #1.
• This is a much longer sentence in contrast to the two sentences that come before it.

Again, it might not look like much, but the second instance does look a little cleaner. A lot of this will rely on your template, but you always want to remember to look at your resume as though it were an art piece, and that involves the order to place the sentences in bullet points.

It’ll not have much effect, but increasing your resume’s potential is not merely about giving it thorough makeovers. Sometimes the smallest change might be what you want to put yourself ahead of the competition.

Tips

• Bullet point formatting isn’t that significant, but still plays a key part in your chances.