What to Italicize and Bold on a Resume (Plus 7 More Formatting Fixes)

Content is king; format is queen. They rule together — equally.

You can have the most impressive background for the job you’re applying for. But if it’s poorly formatted and presented — even to the point of content being hidden — then your cluttered resume is doing you a disservice.

I’ve seen plenty of resumes that look absolutely incredible, with amazing designs, funky graphics, and cool fonts. Conversely, I’ve come across far too many that look like a wall of indecipherable text with no consistent formatting features to help me skim through it. Neither extreme gets interviews.

A screener has seconds to find name, title, dates, employer, and keywords. Every bold, italic, or spacing choice either speeds that scan or slows it. This is where a lot of people get confused: italics used inconsistently or on the wrong things; bold used everywhere or nowhere; too much clutter.

This article explains why formatting is a function, not decoration. I’ll share nine things that create confusion and answer common questions about achieving a consistent, skimmable resume using features such as italics, bold, fonts, and white space through side-by-side examples.

If you’re also stuck on choosing a resume format (not just the formatting), our tutorial on how to choose the right resume format is a good place to start.

What to italicize on a resume (and what not to)

One of the most common questions I’m asked about resume formatting is, “Should you use italics in a resume?”

My answer: yes, but not everywhere.

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) can easily parse italics, so this isn’t the issue. Just don’t go overboard.

In general, large blocks of italic fonts are difficult to read, so limit the use of italics to:

• publication and book titles
• foreign phrases (e.g. pari passu in banking)
• quotes or testimonials

Should job titles be italicized? Not by default — some people combine bold and italics for job titles, but that’s a personal style choice, not a rule.

Should dates be italicized on a resume? No. Dates, along with company names and locations, read best in plain bold — clean, contemporary, and consistent with the rest of your job history.

Just ensure that whatever category gets italicized (e.g. foreign phrases), every instance of that category gets italicized — no exceptions mid-document.

What to bold on a resume

Bold helps text to stand out. Use it for items such as:

• Your name
• Job title headline under your name
• Section headings (e.g. experience, education, etc.)
• Job titles, company name and location, employment dates

While some resumes bold keywords directly in the summary, I’d avoid it — it can look distracting and overused. A concise, keyword-driven summary paired with a clear skills section does the same work without the visual clutter. Use bold strategically elsewhere on the page. Bold everywhere means bold nowhere.

Once you’ve selected which keywords to add to your summary, skills section, and job descriptions, run your resume through our ATS resume checker for instant feedback.

Would rather not make these calls yourself? Our free resume builder applies bold, spacing, and section styling consistently across the whole document, so most of the decisions on this page are already made for you.

Bold, italics, underline, and caps: one worked example

So far, we’ve talked about italics and bold. What about two other common highlighting features, underline and caps?

Again, neither of these impact ATS parsing. However, underlining is often overkill, unless it’s used to draw attention to additional information to stand out, for example key project titles within a job description (if you’ve already used italics elsewhere).

How about caps? I generally recommend it for:

• Your name
• Section names
• Job titles

But never for:

• Main body text

Why capitalize the job title and not the company name? While there’s no right or wrong here, a recruiter is usually more interested in your job titles first, companies second. Capitalizing the job title strategically draws attention to these.

Let’s look at some examples of the same experience entry, shown three ways:

Over-formatted

Under-formatted

Right

If you’re not sure how to pull it all together into a complete resume, we’ve got you. Check out our tutorial on how to write a resume.

Fonts and type size

The font you choose has an impact on both recruiters who manually skim your resume, as well as an ATS.

ATS are better at parsing standard classic fonts such as Calibri, Arial, Garamond, Helvetica, Verdana, Georgia, Trebuchet, and Tahoma.

For manual review, avoid Times New Roman and Courier. While these are ATS-parsable, they look outdated and unprofessional to the modern recruiter eye. Exception: Times New Roman is acceptable for academic resumes and CVs, but should still be avoided otherwise if a clean contemporary look is aimed at.

As for font size, a general rule is:

12-pt body text for 1-page resumes (relevant for students, entry-level, junior, and early career professionals). This fills the page appropriately rather than leaving it looking sparse or underwritten, especially for those with little to no experience.

Otherwise, an 11-pt font size is best for readability and to maximize the use of space to list achievements and projects, without creating a wall of text. Avoid anything smaller, as it’s harder on the eye if your resume is printed out.

A well-organized two-page resume at 11-pt beats an over-shrunk one-pager at 8-pt or 9-pt, regardless of career stage.

Check out our tutorial on how to optimize a two-page resume for more tips beyond font type and size.

White space and margins

Some resumes are so full of information that the reader has a hard time separating one section from another. The information about the employer, job titles, dates, and job highlights are placed so closely together, that it’s difficult for the reader to quickly discern the important information.

When a recruiter has dozens or even hundreds of resumes to review, you want to avoid giving them any reason to put yours aside.

White space gives the eye a clear direction in which to travel when interpreting your career story. It helps define when a change of information has occurred. It shows you are neat and organized.

Margin size also has a significant impact on how skimmable your resume is. The standard margin recommendation is 0.5” where more space is needed (e.g. mid-career level and above) and 1” for resumes with less text.

When it comes to justifying your margins, avoid right-justifying — it looks unprofessional and distracting. Fully justified text contributes to the dreaded “wall of text” look. The happy medium? Left-justify your resume body text for a clean modern appearance.

Consistency: the mistake that undoes the rest

The format of your resume should be consistent and well organized. For example, if you choose to capitalize the job title, then every job title in the resume should be capitalized. Every heading should be the same typeface and size.

If you use bold formatting, use it consistently. If you use bullet points to set off the highlights of your work experience, use them consistently under each job and ensure that your bullet points are aligned throughout the document.

Establish a logical order for each job description. Depending on how long your job titles are, you can put them on the same line as the company, location, and employment dates. If not, place the job title and dates on the first line, and list the business name and location directly underneath. Just be consistent throughout the document.

On one line:

On separate lines:

Consistency makes it as easy as possible for the person screening the resume to understand your career history. This should be clear from the top of your resume to the bottom.

Speaking of the resume top, here’s how to write a resume header (with examples and tips).

Too much information

One of the biggest contributors to resume clutter is packing in too much information.

An easy way to avoid this is to prune job listings. Reduce or remove employment history from ten years or more ago: this also helps to reduce age bias, and focus the reader on your more recent specialist experience.

If you’ve held several short-term roles (e.g. through consulting, contract work, or jobs that didn’t work out) listing each one separately with its own heading can clutter your work history and raise questions about the brevity.

Instead, group short-term roles under one common heading or job title that fits all the roles, then list the companies in brackets and the dates underneath or alongside. This keeps the format clean while still giving the reader the full picture of your experience.

If they occurred one after the other:

If staggered:

Keep your language tight. Avoid waffling. Leverage the common resume writing tactic of removing ‘a’, ‘an’, and ‘the’ from job description bullet points (not the summary) to shorten the character count without detracting from meaning.

Ensure keywords are matched directly from the job description rather than using longer explanations for the same thing.

Finally: don’t over-explain your roles and summary. Wordiness loses attention very quickly, and makes it harder for the reader to quickly understand your relevance for their vacancy.

Now that we’ve explored nine things that clutter up your resume (lack of white space, unusual or too many different fonts, too much bold, inappropriate font size, inconsistent text formatting, short job listings, justified margins, too much information, over-writing), check these fourteen things you should never include in your resume.

FAQ

What should be italicized on a resume?

Reserve italics for publication and book titles, foreign phrases, and quotes or testimonials. Little else needs it.

Should dates be italicized on a resume?

No. Bold or plain text works better and keeps the formatting consistent with the rest of your job history.

What should I bold on my resume?

Your name, job title headline, section headings, job titles, company names and locations, and employment dates.

Are job titles italicized on a resume?

Not by default. Some people combine bold and italics for job titles, but that’s a personal style choice, not a rule.

Should a resume be justified?

No. Left-justify your body text. Right-justifying or fully justifying creates distracting gaps and a “wall of text” look.

Can an ATS read italics and bold?

Yes, in standard fonts. The formatting itself isn’t the issue — overusing it is.