INOVA HEALTH SYSTEM : ADVICE : Career Advice | Is Your Resume Internet Friendly?

Careers > Advice > Career Advice | Is Your Resume Internet Friendly?

Career Advice | Is Your Resume Internet Friendly?

Writing for the Web, winning the job you want
Resume etiquette is no longer a matter of hand-written versus typewritten. Your resume, with all its neatness and perfect grammar, can be your downfall if it's not properly formatted for the electronic medium. Recruiters and employers are quickly turning to automated, electronic means to receive, process and eventually review resumes. If you haven't progressed to these new, efficient methods, you might find yourself out of the race.

With the rapidly growing popularity of the Internet, the act of sending a resume is making the look of the document as important as the content. Some employers are requesting resumes be sent solely via e-mail and, in this age of computer viruses, will rarely accept an attachment. Large companies have adopted scanner-based resume applications to scan and store resumes in a single database making character recognition and format a vital necessity. And virtually all companies are searching for candidates via career sites and resume databases.

However, there's no need to fret. Here are a few tips to prepare your resume for e-mail, scanning or Internet posting:

e-mailed resumes should be sent as text within the e-mail body; not as an attachment
use simple font faces (Arial, Courier, Futura, Helvetica, New Century, Optima, Palatino, Times) and avoid using 10-point characters
use boldface and/or all capital letters for section headings and emphasis, as long as letters don't touch each other
use only chronological format and left-justification for the entire document
avoid graphics, symbols, bullets, underlining, shading, slashes, dashes, contractions, abbreviations, maps, boxes, spreadsheets and photo graphics
don't use borders or complex tables
send only your cover letter and resume - no additional attachments
be sure your cover letter is short and concise
separate your cover letter and resume with a single line of ten '@' symbols
the subject of your mail message should be the word "resume"
use critical key words/industry jargon
use multiple synonyms for the same skills to be sure your qualifications are found
use nouns instead of verbs because it is more likely that a recruiter will search for 'Tax Accountant' than 'prepared taxes for corporate office'
be sure your name is at the top of each page

A word about ASCII resumes Some employers will require your resume to be in an ASCII format. This is easily done by using any word processing application and saving your resume in a text only format.

A few things to remember about ASCII resumes are:

don't use special characters - keep it simple
don't use 'Word Wrap' - use hard carriage returns for line breaks
don't use special fonts - your resume will be viewed in whatever font the employer's PC uses
don't use the Tab key -- use the spacebar instead
do align your resume on the left side of the screen and use the spacebar to center text
do run Spell-Check before saving your resume
do proofread your resume before sending it to the employer

Related Articles