Symbols for Resumes: Bullets, Separators and Dashes That Stay Readable

How-To Guides · 2 min read · Published October 25, 2026

Quick answer: stick to a few plain symbols that are ordinary text: • for bullets (Alt+0149, Option+8), | or · between contact details, and – (en dash, Alt+0150) in date ranges like 2022–2025. Avoid emoji, icon fonts and symbols that replace words, because they may vanish or turn into boxes when the file is opened elsewhere or read by software.

Quick reference: every method

Every Alt code below is verified against the real Windows code pages — where none exists we say so, rather than list one that won’t work.

The safe set

Details: bullet point, en and em dash, pipe, check mark.

Examples

• Contact line: Jane Doe | London | +44 20 7946 0000 | jane@example.com
• Dates: Marketing Manager, 2021–2025 (en dash, no spaces).
• Bullets: • Grew newsletter sign-ups by 40% in one year.

Use with care

• Contact icons (☏ ✉ ⌂): fine for design, but keep the words or the actual number and address next to them; never let an icon replace "Phone" or "Email" on its own.
• Arrows (→) to show a result: once or twice, not in every bullet.
• Stars (★★★☆☆) for skills: always with a word level.
• Emoji such as 📧 or ✅: they look different on each device and can be dropped by older software. Leave them out of formal applications (emoji vs text symbols).
• Wingdings and icon fonts: the file really contains letters such as "l" or "ü", which turn back into letters when the font is missing.

Lists, lines and headings

• Use the word processor's bulleted list button instead of typing • at the start of every line: the indents stay neat and software reads it as a list. In Word, Ctrl+Shift+L applies the List Bullet style; in Google Docs, Ctrl+Shift+8.
• For a line under your name, use a paragraph border or a horizontal line, not a row of ─ or = characters, which can wrap badly on another screen.
• Keep section headings (Experience, Education, Skills) as plain bold text.

Before you send it

• Export to PDF and open the PDF on another device. Boxes instead of symbols mean the font is missing (fix).
• Copy all text from the PDF into a plain-text editor. Whatever doesn't survive there may not survive an upload either.

Related: symbols for email signatures and symbols cheat sheet.

Frequently asked questions