When I started to look for tips on updating my resume today, I came across terminology like “heading” and ”header” and ”headline.” Well is where I decided to begin.

What is a Header?

The header in the resume is the first items that is listed. It includes your name, address, city, state, zip code, telephone number and email address.

When I took a look at my resume, I could see that I needed to immediatley make this my first improvement.  Here is how it looked.

Eric P. Martin

0000 S. Main St. #111 -Chicago, IL. 60601

773-555-5555 - theblognovice@theblognovice.org

What’s wrong with this picture?

The first thing I noticed was my entire resume was the same font size (9). Even though my name was in bold, the font size was the same. It didn’t stand out. And it certainly wouldn’t grab the attention of the human resource person who looks at several hundred resumes.Tips I found suggested making your name font size range from a minimum of 14 to a maximum of 22. I chose to adjust my own to 22.

The second thing I did was to put all of my contact information on one line. My reason behind putting the font size at 9 was to have everything fit on one page. By reducing the second and third line to just one in the header, I could create more space on my resume thus allowing a bigger font size for my name.

The next change I made was adding a border to separate my name. This I believe creates a visually pleasing format to the h.r. person to read. Not only does it seem to be standard format in resumes, it also shows that you put some extra effort into preparing your resume.

The last change I made was to left indent my name and center the second line. This is a matter of personal preference on how I wanted my resume to look from the tips I discovered.

Updated Resume Header