What Does a Good Resume Look Like? 7 Traits and a Before/After Example

Q: What does a good resume look like?

A good resume uses a single column, standard top-to-bottom section order, one clean font, generous white space, and is one page (two pages max for 10+ years experience). Every bullet ends with a number or concrete outcome, the content is tailored to the target job, and there are no graphics, photos, icons, or skill bars.

Q: Should a resume have color and graphics?

No. Black text on white is the standard. Jobscan's 2024 audit found that 77% of resumes with graphical layouts get downgraded by ATS parsers. A subtle accent color on section headers is the maximum acceptable visual element.

Q: What is the most important trait of a good resume?

Every bullet ending with a number or concrete outcome. Claims without proof are invisible to recruiters. 'Cut LCP from 4.1s to 1.8s' is stronger than 'improved site performance.'

A good resume looks deceptively simple. It uses one clean font, plenty of white space, and a single column of content. It reads from top to bottom like a story: name, role, what you have done, in that order. It is almost always one page, occasionally two. It avoids graphics, icons, headshots, and skill bars. And most importantly, every bullet on a good resume ends with a number or a concrete outcome, because claims without proof are invisible to recruiters. This guide covers the 7 specific traits a good resume has, what each one looks like in practice, and a full before/after rewrite of a real bullet section so you can see the difference.

Why "Simple" Beats "Impressive"

The recruiter's job is to scan, not admire. Ladders' 2018 eye-tracking study found that recruiters spend an average of 7.4 seconds on the initial resume scan. A 2024 Jobscan audit of 10,000 resumes found that the ones that got the most interview callbacks shared the same traits: single column, standard section order, 1 page, no graphics. The "designer" resumes with multi-column layouts, icons, and color blocks actually performed worse on ATS parse accuracy and were down-scored by enterprise ATS systems like Workday and Greenhouse.

7.4s

Recruiter scan time on first pass (Ladders 2018)

98.2%

Of Fortune 500 companies use an ATS (Jobscan 2024)

77%

Of resumes with graphical layouts get downgraded by ATS parsers (Jobscan)

The 7 Traits of a Good Resume

Trait 1: Single column, standard order

One column, reading top to bottom: header, summary, skills (or moved below experience for senior roles), experience, education, certifications, optional. Multi-column layouts look modern in a template preview but are parsed in the wrong order by most ATS systems, which flattens left-column-then-right-column and scrambles your content.

Trait 2: One page (maybe two)

One page for candidates with under 10 years of experience. Two pages for 10+ years, and only when the second page is half-full or more. Three pages only for academic CVs. See ideal resume length for the full breakdown.

Trait 3: Clean, readable typography

One font family (Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, Garamond, or Georgia are all safe). Body text at 10 to 11pt, section headers at 12 to 14pt, name at 16 to 20pt. No more than 2 font weights (regular and bold). No italics except for company names and publication titles. See best resume fonts.

Trait 4: Generous white space

Consistent margins (0.5" to 1" on all sides), visible space between sections, and consistent line spacing (1.0 to 1.15). A cramped resume signals cramped thinking. White space guides the eye to the content that matters.

Trait 5: Every bullet ends with a number or outcome

This is the single most important trait. A good resume is proof, not claims. Every bullet should describe an action and a measurable result: "cut processing time from 14 to 4 hours," "grew MRR by $340K in 2 quarters," "onboarded 142 new customers at a 94% 30-day activation rate." If a bullet has no number and no concrete outcome, it is a claim, and claims are invisible to recruiters.

Trait 6: Tailored to the specific job

A good resume is not static. The skills, the summary, and even the order of the bullets shift for each application to mirror the target job description. This is what separates the "I sent 200 applications and got nothing" candidate from the "I sent 12 tailored applications and got 4 interviews" candidate.

Trait 7: No graphics, photos, or icons

Black text on a white background is a feature, not a limitation. Photos are inappropriate in US and UK applications. Skill bars, icons, and pie charts are ignored by ATS parsers and seen as clutter by recruiters. The one acceptable visual element is a subtle accent color on section headers, and even that is optional.

Before and After: A Senior Product Manager's Bullets

The difference between a good resume and a weak one often comes down to the bullet points, not the design. Here is the same 3-bullet experience entry, rewritten to hit the 7 traits above.

Before (weak)

Senior Product Manager, Acme Corp (2022 to Present)
• Responsible for leading the growth product team and setting the roadmap.
• Utilized data to make decisions and worked cross-functionally with engineering and design.
• Helped grow user base and drove key initiatives to improve engagement.

After (strong)

Senior Product Manager, Acme Corp (Mar 2022 to Present)
Leading a 3-PM growth team and a $4.2M annual experimentation budget.
• Grew monthly active users from 340K to 812K in 18 months by launching onboarding v3, a 7-step flow that cut day-1 drop-off from 58% to 31%.
• Shipped a referral program that drove 14% of all new signups within 6 months, contributing $1.8M in incremental ARR.
• Rebuilt the A/B testing infrastructure with the platform team, cutting experiment setup time from 11 days to 2 and enabling 42 tests in Q3 vs 9 in Q1.

Notice what changed: every bullet now starts with a strong action verb (not "responsible for"), every bullet ends with a specific number (340K to 812K, 58% to 31%, $1.8M, 42 vs 9), and the scope line adds context the reader would not get from the job title alone. Same role, same person, dramatically different read.

The 10-Second Visual Check

Print your resume out or view it at 50% zoom (so you can see the whole page without reading the text). Then ask:

Does the page breathe? White space around sections, not a wall of text.
Can you see where one section ends and the next begins? Section headers should stand out.
Are the margins consistent? Nothing pushed to the edge of the paper.
Is the font consistent? One family, not three.
Can your eye find the most recent job in under 2 seconds? If yes, the visual hierarchy is working.

The 60-Second Content Check

After the visual check, slow down and read every bullet. Ask:

Does every bullet start with a strong action verb? No "responsible for," no "duties included."
Does every bullet end with a number or concrete outcome? If not, that bullet is a claim, not proof.
Would a stranger understand the impact in one read? "Cut LCP from 4.1s to 1.8s" is clearer than "improved site performance."
Is there any filler? "Utilize," "synergize," "leverage" as verbs, "passionate," "detail-oriented" as adjectives. Cut them. For the Power Words replacements, see action words for your resume.
Does the summary pitch match the experience? If the summary says "growth leader" but every bullet is about maintenance work, the resume tells two stories. Align them.

Next Steps

Print your current resume. Run the 10-second visual check, then the 60-second content check. For every bullet that fails the "number or outcome" test, rewrite it using the action-plus-result formula. Then paste the whole thing into our free ATS resume checker to confirm the parser reads it cleanly. For the full build process from scratch, see how to write a resume, how to create a great resume, what to put on a resume, resume sections to include, how to start a resume, ideal resume length, and how many bullet points per job on a resume.