Should I justify the text or align it to the left? Does it really matter?
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Cv and Cover Letter Format
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Hi there,
It does matter in the sense that the CV should be clean and well-structured. However, what is most important is the content of the CV. You want to show your relevant experience (academic background, work experience with role descriptions and time periods) and also the results that you have achieved (tangible and quantifiable results).
Let me know in case you need help with CV and Cover letter writing, happy to help. I have reviewed tons of different CVs.
Adriane
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These are formal documents, they should be aligned to the left.
Moreover, for a CV, where you are supposed to write 1-2 line sentences… justify does not work well with that. And the risk of having an akward spacing between words is real.
Can work a bit better with a CL, but once again, this is supposed to be a formal document.
Does it matter? Not really. But there's a right way to do it, and that is to align to the left.
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What matters is that whatever formatting you do - should make sense and should look good.
At times, justifying can expand/reduce the spacings between words - leading to unclean formatting.
Given that most points in the CV should be single-line bullets, left-align makes much more sense.
For a cover letter, even if you choose justification, you might just want to turn on hyphenation to make it appear more natural and professional.
(edited)
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Best answer
You should align it to the left! And I know it seems silly, but these things do matter. A well-formatted CV and cover letter are key to getting your foot in the door at the initial stages of the application. I recommend taking a look at some consulting resume templates to learn the best practices with this.
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Hi there -
there is no hard rule to this, an frankly speaking, it won't move the needle - as long as the CV is well-written and has a well-formatted look-and-feel.
That said, for CV it's common to have left-aligned formatting, for cover letter both can work well. My personal preference for the latter is Justify.
Feel free to share your draft via DM - happy to take a quick glance and tell you if the format works.
Regards, Andi
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Like Beyonce said it (was it her), ‘to the left, to the left’.
Justifying it makes for some awkward spacing.
Last but not least, get an expert to do a full professional review. It's the best money you've ever spent if you think about fee relative to the doors it opens (plus the knowledge that you'll have for the rest of your life of how to create an amazing CV).
Best,
Cristian
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Align to left. Yes, it does matter!
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