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Electronic Resumes

Email resumes follow a different set of writing and production rules from ordinary resumes. Sometimes referred to as "Internet resumes" or "plain text resumes," this type of resume is usually produced in a word processing document, saved as an ASCII or text-only file, and then transmitted by email. 

Depending on how the recipient handles such a resume, an emailed resume also may be entered into a resume database. If you follow these 13 basic rules for preparing an email resume, your chances of getting a response to it will be enhanced:

1. Create a text version of your resume in your standard word processing program like MS Word.
2. Set the left margin at 0 and the right margin at 65; each line must not exceed 65 characters.
3. Turn off your word wrap or automatic hyphen; always use a hard right return (hit your "Enter" key) at the end of each line.
4. Select a fixed-width rather than proportional typeface. Your safest typeface choice is Courier.  It is quite possible that your resume will be scanned into a database using OCR (optical character recognition) software.  OCR software is pretty good but still makes mistakes and the HR personnel are not likely to fix mistakes for you.  Fixed-width typefaces offer the least number of mistakes.  Therefore, keywords that are applicable to your resume will be more likely to scan correctly.
5. Include a keyword summary, in case this resume gets scanned into a resume database that retrieves resumes by keywords.  Resume database software allows the user to search for resumes by keyword found in text.  Few resumes will use all keywords in the text of the resume itself, even though they may apply.  By including a keyword summary, you can include all of the appropriate keywords without having to forcing them into the rest of the resume in an unnatural way.
6. Limit emphasizing techniques to these four: all caps, asterisks (*), dashes (-), and plus signs (+). Put your name and headings in ALL CAPS.  Using all caps throughout your resume makes it hard to read and is considered to be "SHOUTING".  Using all caps in your name is appropriate.  Using non-alphanumeric characters may confuse scanners and/or may become part of a word and therefore, make it not part of search results for the word that was intended.
7. Use the Space bar and Enter key to create white space. Do not use the tab key or other formatting commands to indent or center items.  The tab key may be interpreted by other software in a way that you don't expect.
8. Spell-check and grammar-check the document.  Nothing says "sloppy" more than misspellings and using poor grammar may be misinterpreted.  Misspellings won't match with a software dictionary either, and the word may be turned into something completely different.  If the word "engineer" is misspelled with one less "e" and comes out "enginer", that word is not in the dictionary and may be interpreted by OCR software as "engine".  Of course if the search is made for the word "engineer", yours won't come up.
9. Look out for words that sound similar but are spelled differently.  Many grammar-check programs will pick these up in ordinary text but they might not.  Common mistakes are: their, there, they're; for, four, fore; compliment, complement; were, we're, where, wear; two, too, to; its, it's; and plural vs. plural possessives like customers vs. customers'.  The list goes on and on.  
10. Save your resume as a text-only document, which converts it to a plain-text resume (ASCII document).
11. Check for formatting problems by reopening the document; fix any formatting problems using your Space bar and Enter key.
12. Drop the plain-text resume into the body of your email message - avoid sending it as an attachment unless asked to do so.  Never send your electronic resume in HTML format.  Because of the prevalence of spam and viruses on the Internet, many companies have software that is built into their systems that deletes any email with an attachment or in HTML format, especially if there are images as there would be if you chose to use a nice background.
13. Before you email your resume to an employer, email it to yourself or a friend to do a final check for any formatting problems.  Do both if you can and set your monitor to a different resolution than you normally use.  If you have made an error, a different resolution may make your resume look odd.
14. When preparing to transmit your email resume to an employer, be sure to include an attention-getting, yet professional, subject header, such as "Information You Requested" or "Resume For Accounting Position."
15.

While emailed resumes are relatively unadorned, this does not mean they have to be ugly ducklings. If you observe these basic rules, your emailed resume will look much better than most such resumes received by employers.

 

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