Jamie Liao

A resume’s format is just as important as its content. From Resumes 101: The Basics, recall that the goal of a resume is to quickly identify if a candidate is a good match. The formatting of a resume heavily supports this goal to both 1) quickly review a candidate’s past experiences and 2) identify if they check off all or most of the role’s minimum requirements.

Recently, I read that experienced recruiters can easily go through 100 resumes in 30 minutes. This blew my mind- they spend roughly 18 seconds to review 1 resume. If recruiters allocate your resume only a few seconds, you have to use that time extremely wisely and efficiently to convey a large amount of information in a small amount of words.

In other words, the main goal of formatting is to transfer your list of accomplishments to your reader’s brain in only a few seconds. Luckily, information processing has been heavily studied in the field of psychology. We’ll break down 3 tangible ways to better format your resume by leveraging the unique efficiencies of the human cognition.

1. Make it familiar and predictable

Familiar terms “load in” a lot of assumptions from past knowledge and experiences by loading in chunks of information. This is one variation of top-down processing. Compare the following short descriptions of a person named Sam:

Example 1
Someone who guides students through understanding basic computer science topics.

Example 2
Computer science tutor

Both examples convey roughly the same information about Sam, but Example 1 takes nearly 3x the amount of words. This is an example of top-down processing because our brain reads “computer science tutor” and immediately loads past knowledge tied to it.

In a way, our brain automatically utilizes the “predictive text” feature in most situations (even if we don’t want it). So, use it to your advantage when writing your resume.

Make your resume familiar and predictable
Use familiar terms when writing your resume to take advantage of the reader’s past knowledge, like Examples 1 vs 2 above. This allows you to convey a lot more information in smaller amounts of words, which is essential when your resume has only 18 seconds to shine.

This is also applicable with role titles. Reword vague, unknown role titles into something more familiar, and don’t lie. For example, I’ve recommended students to rename their institution-specific role title from “Assignment Guru” to “Academic Course Assignment Developer” to use broader industry-understood terms.

I recommend creating a chronological resume in Google Docs- this is the most “traditional” resume template. When your resume is allocated only 18 seconds, you want the reader to focus on understanding the contents of your resume, not how to read it.

2. Limit 1 idea per bullet point

In psychology, the current understanding is that our brain’s working memory can hold 7 ± 2 objects. In other words, our brain’s RAM can hold ~7 thoughts before we start losing track of ideas and thoughts. Considering a typical resume contains a lot more than 7 points/ideas, it’s important to be intentional about the method and number of content shared. Keep in mind the 7 ± 2 rule when drafting your resume.

One easy way to reduce the cognitive overload is to restrict the amount of ideas on a resume. This means, limiting 1 idea or thought per bullet.

One main idea per bullet point
At the start, it can be difficult to select what to highlight from your experiences and projects. Then, it’s even harder to limit and expand that experience for a single bullet point on a resume. Consider this example bullet point:

Example:
1. Tutored 100+ students in data structures by answering assignment questions and further created Python program to help them assess their data structures understanding. 

Although this is only 1 bullet point, there are 2 ideas here: 1) tutoring 100+ students in data structures, and 2) creating a python program. This bullet is already nearly 30% of the reader’s cognitive limit. The percentage is likely even higher because the reader’s brain was already filled with 1 or 2 objects, such as a list of key words to look for in your resume. Instead, break up each idea into their own idea and add more detail about each idea:

Example 1 (split by idea):
1. Tutored 100+ students in data structures while answering assignment questions. 
2. Created a Python program to help students practice programming problems, providing real-time assessments on their data structures understanding.

Separating each idea into its own dedicated bullet allowed the writer to include more interesting information about the Python program. Additionally, it also exposed the weakness of the first bullet. In this scenario, there’s an argument to remove the first bullet point because they could be evaluated as:

1. A weak, responsibility-based bullet point regurgitating a responsibility assumed as a CS tutor (read more about Responsibility vs Achievement based bullets), and
2. A strong, achievement-based bullet point highlighting the initiative to create a Python program that solves a problem.

Isolating each idea into their own bullet point also forces you to re-evaluate a bullet point’s strength.

Conclusion

Your resume’s intentional formatting can do a lot of heavy lifting, if done correctly. Focus on familiarity and predictable, while limiting 1 idea per bullet point. I’ll have a whole series of Resumes 101 blog posts breaking down key components of your resume.

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My goal is to break down technical concepts through the lens of educational psychology. If you’ve found my explanation or breakdown helpful, please let me know in the comments!

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