Career Advice for Job Seekers
Love your resume: 5 heart-stopping formatting mistakes to fix this February
February is often dedicated to matters of the heart, but at College Recruiter, we think it is the perfect time to show some love to the most important document in your professional life. Your resume is the first impression you make. It is your silent ambassador. For those of you in the first five years of your career, a resume is often the only thing standing between you and a life changing interview.
The problem we see most often is not a lack of talent or experience. It is that the resume itself is suffering from what we call heart stopping mistakes. These are formatting errors that cause a recruiter to stop reading and move on to the next candidate in a matter of seconds. In the fast paced hiring market of 2026, you cannot afford to have a document that is difficult to read or looks outdated.
If you want to land a role this spring, it is time to perform some surgery on your resume. Here are the five biggest formatting blunders we see from early career job seekers and how you can fix them before the February frost thaws.
1. The Wall of Text
The single biggest mistake you can make is presenting a recruiter with dense blocks of text. We often see young professionals try to cram every single detail of their internships and first jobs into long, winding paragraphs. They think that more detail equals more value. In reality, the opposite is true.
Recruiters spend an average of six to ten seconds on the initial screen of a resume. If they see a wall of text, their eyes will slide right off the page. They are looking for reasons to say no so they can get through their pile of hundreds of applications.
The Fix: Use bullet points religiously. Each bullet should be no more than two lines long. Use white space to your advantage. A resume that breathes is a resume that gets read. Think of white space as the “oxygen” for your document. It guides the eye to the most important information.
2. The Dated Objective Statement
In the past, every resume started with an objective statement that said something like “Seeking an entry level position where I can use my skills to help a company grow.” In 2026, this is considered a waste of prime real estate. We know you want a job; that is why you sent the resume.
An objective statement is about what you want. A modern resume should be about what you can do for the employer. When you lead with a generic objective, you are signaling that you are stuck in an old way of thinking.
The Fix: Replace the objective with a Professional Summary or a Value Proposition. In three or four lines, tell the employer exactly who you are and the specific value you bring. Use bold text for your job title or your primary skill set. This section should act as a high level pitch that makes them want to keep reading.
3. Inconsistent Visual Language
We see this constantly when people update their resumes over several years. They add a new job in a slightly different font or they use different styles of bullet points for different sections. One date is written as “January 2024” while another is written as “06/25.”
This might seem like a small detail, but it speaks volumes about your attention to detail. If your resume is a mess of different styles, a hiring manager will assume your work product will be just as disorganized. Inconsistency is a silent killer of professional credibility.
The Fix: Pick one font family and stick to it. Use no more than two font sizes: one for headers and one for body text. Ensure every date, city, and state follows the exact same format throughout the document. We recommend using a simple table to check your alignment.
Pro Tip: Save your resume as a PDF before sending it. This ensures that the beautiful formatting you worked so hard on stays exactly the same, regardless of what device the recruiter is using to view it.
4. The Hidden Keywords
By 2026, almost every medium to large company uses some form of automated screening. If your resume is not formatted to be “readable” by these systems, it will never even reach a human set of eyes. Many job seekers try to get creative with columns, graphics, or images. While these might look nice to a person, they often confuse the software that parses your data.
If the software cannot find your skills because they are hidden inside a fancy graphic or a non standard font, your application will be discarded.
The Fix: Stick to a clean, single column layout. Avoid putting important information in headers or footers, as some older systems still struggle to read those areas. Use standard section titles like “Experience,” “Education,” and “Skills.” Do not try to be cute by calling your experience “My Professional Journey.” The software is looking for specific words, so give it what it wants.
5. Broken or Unprofessional Contact Links
We are living in a digital first world. Your resume likely contains links to your LinkedIn profile, a portfolio, or your email address. We frequently find that these links are either broken or lead to unprofessional destinations.
For someone with 0 to 5 years of experience, your online presence is your proof of work. If we click on a portfolio link and get a “404 Error,” the trust is immediately broken. Similarly, if you are still using the email address you created in middle school, it is time for an upgrade.
The Fix: Test every single link on your resume before you hit send. Ensure your LinkedIn profile is updated and matches the dates on your resume. If you have a portfolio, make sure it is mobile friendly. As for your email, keep it simple: your name at a major provider is the gold standard.
Resume Formatting Comparison
To help you visualize these changes, we have put together this quick reference guide for your February refresh.
| Feature | The “Heart Attack” Version | The “Heart Healthy” Version |
| Layout | Multi column with lots of graphics. | Single column with plenty of white space. |
| Fonts | Three different fonts and colors. | One clean, professional font (like Arial or Calibri). |
| Opening | “Objective: To find a job in marketing.” | “Summary: Data driven marketing specialist with 2 years of experience.” |
| Experience | Long paragraphs describing daily tasks. | Bullet points focused on results and metrics. |
| Links | Non clickable text or broken URLs. | Clean, hyperlinked, and tested URLs. |
Give Your Resume a Pulse
The goal of a resume is not to get you the job. The goal of a resume is to get you the interview. By cleaning up these formatting mistakes, you are removing the friction that prevents recruiters from seeing your true potential.
We encourage you to take an hour this week to look at your resume with fresh eyes. Imagine you are a busy recruiter who has had too little sleep and too much coffee. If you were that person, would you find the information you need in six seconds? If the answer is no, then it is time to make some changes.
A great resume is a gift to yourself and your future. Treat it with the respect it deserves, and you will find that the hiring market starts to treat you with respect in return. February is the month of love, so start by showing some love to your professional brand.
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