As a Retail General Manager, your resume needs to balance professionalism with clarity. Choose a reverse-chronological layout to highlight leadership experience. Use clean sections like Management Experience and Retail Skills. Avoid templates with columns or graphics—ATS systems struggle with these. Stick to one page if you’re early in your career, two pages if you have 10+ years.
Fonts like Arial, Calibri, or Georgia at 10–12pt are safest. Use 1.15 line spacing for readability. Give your eyes room to breathe—white space between sections makes your resume feel less cramped. Remember, ATS parsers read left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Simple formatting helps both humans and machines scan quickly.
Common mistakes include using overly decorative fonts (like Comic Sans), cramming too much into sections, or relying on graphics. For example, listing 20 responsibilities under a role without bullet points is a recipe for confusion. Keep bullet points concise and action-focused—think "Led team of 15 to increase sales by 22%", not "Responsible for managing team".