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Career

Resume

Digital Resumes

Today’s employers have to manage an enormous number of resumes. One of the most frequent complaints the writers of this series hear from students is the failure of employers to even acknowledge the receipt of a resume and cover letter. Frequently, the reason for this poor response or nonresponse is the volume of applications received for every job. In attempt to better manage the considerable labor investment in processing large numbers of resumes, many employers are requiring digital submission of resumes. There are two types of digital resumes: those that can be e-mailed or posted to a Web site called electronic resumes, and those that can be “read” by a computer, commonly called scannable resumes. Though the format may be a bit different than the traditional “paper” resume, the goal of both types of digital resumes is the same—to get you an interview! These resumes must be designed to be “technologically friendly.” What that basically means to you is that they should be free of graphics and fancy formatting.

Electronic Resumes

Sometimes referred to as plain-text resumes, electronic resumes are designed to be e-mailed to an employer or posted to a commercial Internet database such as CareerMosaic.com, America’s Job Bank, or Monster.com.

Some technical considerations:

Electronic resumes must be written in American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), which is simply a plain-text format. These characters are universally recognized so that every computer can accurately read and understand them. To create an ASCII file of your current resume, open your document, then save it as a text or ASCII file. This will eliminate all formatting. Edit as needed using your computer’s text editor application.
Use a standard-width typeface. Courier is a good choice because it is the font associated with ASCII in most systems.
Use a font size of 11 to 14 points. A 12-point font is considered standard.
Your margin should be left justified.
Do not exceed 65 characters per line, because the word-wrap function doesn’t operate in ASCII.
Do not use boldface, italics, underlining, bullets or various font sizes. Instead, use asterisks, plus signs and all capital letters when you want to emphasize something.
Avoid graphics and shading.
Use as many “keywords” as you possibly can. These are words or phrases usually relating to skills or experience that are either specifically used in the job announcement or are popular buzzwords in the industry.
Minimize abbreviations. One exception is B.S. or B.A. for your degree.
Your name should be the first line of text.
Conduct a “test run” by e-mailing your resume to yourself and a friend before you send it to the employer. See how it transmits, and make any changes you need to. Continue to test it until it’s exactly how you want it to look.
Include your resume in the body of your e-mail message unless an employer specifically requests that you send the resume in the form of an attachment. There are always viruses to consider.
Don’t forget your cover letter. Send it along with your resume as a single message.

Scannable Resumes

Some companies are relying on technology to narrow the candidate pool for available job openings. Electronic Applicant Tracking uses imaging to scan, sort and store resumes in a database. Then, through OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software, the computer scans the resumes for keywords and phrases. To have the best chance at getting an interview, you want to increase the number of “hits”—matches of your skills, abilities, experience and education to those the computer is scanning for—your resume will get. You can see how critical using the right keywords is for this type of resume.

Technical consideration include:

Again, do not use boldface (newer systems may read this OK, but many older ones won’t), italics, underlining, bullets, shading, graphics and multiple font sizes. Instead, for emphasis, use asterisks, plus signs and all capital letters. Minimize abbreviations.
Use a popular typeface such as Courier, Helvetica, Ariel or Palatino. Avoid decorative fonts.
Font size should be between 11 and 14 points.
Do not compress the spacing between letters.
Use horizontal and vertical lines sparingly; the computer may misread them as the letter L or I.
Left-justify the text.
Do not use parentheses or brackets around telephone numbers, and be sure your phone number is on its own line of text.
Your name should be the first line of text and on its own line. If your resume is longer than one page, be sure to put your name on the top of all pages.
Use a traditional resume structure. The chronological format may work best.
Use nouns that are skill-focused, such as management, writer and programming. This is different from traditional paper resumes, which use action-oriented verbs.
Laser printers produce the finest copies. Avoid dot-matrix printers.
Use standard, light-colored paper with text on one side only. Since the higher contrast the better, your best choice is black ink on white paper.
Always send original copies. If you must fax, set the fax on fine mode, not standard.
Do not staple or fold your resume. This can confuse the computer.
Before you send your scannable resume, be certain the employer uses this technology. If you can’t determine this, you may want to send two versions (scannable and traditional) to be sure your resume gets considered.

Sample Digital Resume ( 44 KB)

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