Resume Design: Does It Really Matter?

The Design Trap

Open any resume template marketplace and you will see hundreds of options: colorful sidebars, skill-level progress bars, timeline graphics, headshot placeholders, and layouts that look more like magazine spreads than professional documents.

They look great in the preview. They also frequently fail in practice.

The uncomfortable truth about resume design is that it operates under two constraints that pull in opposite directions. Human readers appreciate visual clarity and a professional look. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) need a simple, parseable structure. The resumes that perform best satisfy both requirements, and that usually means something far less exciting than a design-forward template.

How Recruiters Actually Read Resumes

Eye-tracking studies consistently show that recruiters scan resumes in a rough F-pattern: they read across the top, then scan down the left side, occasionally jumping right when something catches their attention. The average initial scan takes 6-8 seconds.

This means three things for design:

1. The top third of the page is prime real estate. Your name, title, and professional summary need to be immediately visible.
2. Left-aligned content gets seen first. If your job titles are buried in a right-hand column, they might get skipped entirely.
3. Visual hierarchy guides the eye. Bold section headings, consistent formatting, and clear spacing tell the reader where to look next.

What recruiters are not doing is admiring your color palette. They are looking for relevant experience, matching skills, and signals that you can do the job. Design should facilitate that process, not compete with it.

What ATS Systems Can (and Cannot) Parse

Before a human ever sees your resume, it typically passes through an ATS. These systems extract text, categorize it into fields (name, contact info, experience, education, skills), and score it against the job description.

Here is what commonly causes parsing failures:

This does not mean your resume needs to be a plain text file. It means your design choices need to coexist with machine readability. Think of it as designing for two audiences simultaneously.

A Simple ATS Test

Before submitting your resume, try this: copy all the text from your PDF and paste it into a plain text editor (Notepad, TextEdit). If the content comes out in the right order, with all sections intact and no jumbled text, your resume will likely parse correctly. If it is a mess, so is what the ATS is seeing.

The Elements of Good Resume Design

Good design is not about adding things. It is about removing friction between the reader and your content.

Typography

Use a standard, readable font. The safest options:

Professional Fonts:
- Calibri (default on many systems, clean and modern)
- Garamond (slightly more traditional, excellent readability)
- Cambria (designed for screen readability)
- Arial (universal, no surprises)
- Helvetica (clean, professional, widely available)

Avoid:
- Comic Sans (obviously)
- Decorative or script fonts
- Anything that requires installation

Font size should be 10-12pt for body text, 14-16pt for your name, and 12-14pt for section headings. If you are squeezing text to 9pt to fit everything on one page, you need to cut content, not shrink the font.

White Space

White space is not wasted space. It is what makes your resume scannable. Crowded resumes with narrow margins, tight line spacing, and no breathing room between sections are exhausting to read.

Guidelines:

• Margins: 0.5 to 1 inch on all sides
• Line spacing: 1.0 to 1.15 for body text
• Space between sections: at least 6-12pt
• Space between bullet points: at least 2pt

If a recruiter's first impression is "this looks dense," they are already approaching your resume with less patience.

Color

Color can work, but it needs to be restrained. A single accent color for section headings or your name can add a touch of personality without undermining professionalism. Navy blue, dark teal, or charcoal are safe choices. Bright red, neon green, or rainbow gradients are not.

The body text should always be black or very dark gray on a white background. This is not the place to express your creativity.

Section Headings

Use standard section names that both humans and ATS systems expect:

• Professional Summary (or Summary)
• Work Experience (or Experience)
• Education
• Skills
• Certifications (if applicable)

Avoid creative alternatives like "My Journey," "Toolbox," or "What Drives Me." They might feel more personal, but they make it harder for both recruiters and ATS systems to quickly locate the information they need.

When Design Actually Matters More

There are legitimate exceptions where investing in visual design pays off:

Creative roles (graphic designer, UX designer, art director, brand strategist): If you are applying for a role where visual communication is the job, your resume is a work sample. In these cases, a well-designed resume demonstrates competence. But even here, readability and content still come first.

Portfolio-based fields (architecture, photography, fashion): Your resume may be accompanied by a portfolio, and having a consistent visual identity across both documents shows attention to detail.

Direct submissions to a person (not through an ATS): If you are handing your resume directly to a hiring manager at a networking event or emailing it to a contact who will read it personally, ATS compatibility matters less and visual impression matters more.

For everyone else — which is most job seekers — clean and readable beats designed and decorative every time.

The One-Column Rule

If you take away one piece of advice from this article, make it this: use a single-column layout. Multi-column resumes look nice in templates but cause consistent problems with ATS parsing and are harder to scan quickly.

Two-column layouts split the reader's attention and create ambiguity about reading order. They also tend to waste space in the narrower column, forcing you to cram important content or pad with filler.

A single-column layout with clear section headings, consistent formatting, and strong content will outperform a multi-column design template in virtually every hiring scenario.

Design Checklist

Before you send your resume, run through this list:

• Single-column layout
• Standard, readable font (10-12pt body text)
• 0.5-1 inch margins on all sides
• Clear, bold section headings using standard names
• Consistent formatting (if one job title is bold, all are bold)
• No graphics, icons, or skill bars
• No text boxes or tables
• Content pastes cleanly into a plain text editor
• Saved as PDF (unless .docx is specifically requested)
• Prints cleanly on standard letter paper

The Real Differentiator

At the end of the day, no one has ever been hired because their resume had a nicer color scheme than the other candidates. People get hired because their resume clearly communicated relevant experience, measurable impact, and a strong fit for the role.

Design is in service of content. Get the content right first, then make sure the design does not get in the way.

If you want a resume that is both ATS-optimized and visually clean, Superpower Resume generates professionally formatted resumes designed to pass ATS parsing and look sharp when a recruiter opens them. No progress bars. No clip art. Just clear, effective communication of your qualifications.

Sources

• Harvard Business Review: How to Write a Resume That Stands Out — Research-backed guidance on resume presentation and what hiring managers focus on during reviews
• SHRM: How to Evaluate Resumes and Screening Criteria — Employer-side perspective on how resumes are screened and what causes candidates to be filtered out
• Forbes: Resume Formatting Mistakes That Could Cost You the Job — Analysis of common design and formatting errors that hurt applicant chances