Your Resume Should Be One Column

Please stop using those “aesthetic” multi-column resume formats.

Lots of resume template sites will try to sell you (literally!) on resume templates that have multiple columns. But these aesthetically interesting resumes can be actively detrimental to your job search for two main reasons:

Hiring managers are used to reading single-column resumes

Single-column resumes ruled for decades. That means many recruiters, hiring managers, and other HR professionals have spent lots of time scanning single-column resumes. I’ve only been doing it for a few years and my brain is already conditioned to read single-column resumes very quickly.

When I see multiple columns, I know it’s going to take an extra few seconds to figure out where everything is. A few seconds might not sound like a lot — until you realize that many recruiters are spending only 6 seconds to decide whether your resume is worth an in-depth look.

Every little deviation from the norm (whether it’s multiple columns or those awful star ranking systems for your skills) is a strike against you. Too many strikes and your resume gets thrown out for simply being too annoying

Not all ATS can read multi-columns

ATS (or Applicant Tracking Systems) are computer programs that automatically review resumes before they reach human eyes. Historically, these computer programs have been extremely, almost comically bad at reading multi-column resumes.

That’s because English-based ATS typically scan from left to right, top to bottom. It recognizes traditional headings (like Experience and Education) and looks for content in between headings. In a multi-column resumes, you might have Education on the same line as Skills. So the ATS, reading left to right, top to bottom, sees no content in Education but lots of things in Skills.

Now, some ATS in 2020 are much better at reading a bigger variety of formats. But you can’t know if you’re submitting your resume to an employer who is using the latest and greatest technology or a company who hasn’t allocated extra ATS funds since 2005.

You want to cast the widest net possible with your job search. Newer ATS can read both single- and multi-column resumes. Older ATS can only read single-column resumes. You do the math.

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