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How
to Build and Submit Your Resume in ASCII Text
Format Your Resume to be Scanned by a Computer
Format Your Resume to be Scanned by a Computer
Jeremy Shapiro
Pretend for a moment that you find the perfect job in the classified section. It's with a big Fortune 500 company - and they'll be getting hundreds of resumes. You decide to spruce up your resume for the job. You add a fancy font to the resume, elegantly italicize each position that you have held and top it off with an aesthetically pleasing black border surrounding each side of the paper. Your descriptions concisely sum up your skills using lots of actions verbs to describe yourself. You xerox it on a blue resume paper, staple a cover letter on it and send it off.
Then, you never hear from the company.
You were qualified for this position and should have been called for it, but the hiring manager never got to see your resume. Why? The computer system they use could not read your resume.
A
computer reads resumes?
More and more large companies
are using computers to help them manage the volume of resumes for their job openings.
It's called "electronic applicant tracking". This new system is basically
a database of resumes with a built in artificial intelligence to read and extract
information. However, if the text of the resume is hard for the computer to read,
much of the information in the resume does not get into the database.
In our example, there are several big mistakes that will make a resume difficult to read. Let's start with the layout and format of a resume.
Formatting
and Printing Your Resume
When the computer system receives your resume, it scans the resume into the system and then the computer literally reads it. The computer needs to be able to distinguish between the letter "m" and two "n"s placed closely together. Letters on a page can sometimes be blurry and fonts can be hard to read. The computer also likes to get information in a certain order. One software company suggests the following to optimize a resume:
When you prepare your resume:
What should go first on the page?
Printing
the resume and sending it
When you print your resume,
use a white or light colored paper stock. Paper size should be standard U.S. 8.5x11.
Send the company a laser printed original or your resume or a high quality xerox.
A resume produced from a typewriter does work well with the computer system as
long as the ribbon is dark.
When sending off the resume, don't staple pages together. When faxing, make sure that the fax machine (or fax software) is set to high resolution.
Source: Resumix
Use
Nouns instead of Verbs
While writing your resume, use nouns to
describe your qualifications, not verbs. When the hiring managers search through
the database of resumes, they can only search by key words, and those key words
tend to be nouns. For instance, "SQL Database Programmer" is generally
easier to find in a database than writing, "Designed and implemented departmental
database." Make sure that you use nouns that are usually used to describe
your industry. Jargon is perfectly OK, as long as you spell out abbreviations.
Put yourself in the manager's place. What words would you search on to fill a
programming analyst position?
An example:
A resume which would have said: " Worked closely with writers and account coordinators in the development of client promotional materials"
Should read: "Art Director creating four color brochures, Director multimedia presentations, and newspaper ad books."
Where
to go From Here....
You may be asking yourself how you know if the company
uses a computer system? If it's a very large company, they are probably using
the system. Sometimes the address where you send the resume will be a central
depository. And, you can always ask a recruiter!
Does this mean you need 2 different resumes? No, it does mean that you should have two *versions* of your resume. One, should be the one for people to look at (one that is probably more aesthetically pleasing) and one to send into computer resume systems.
The above format, printing and content guidelines
will give you a strong start in optimizing a resume for computer systems. Resumix,
one software company who makes the "electronic applicant tracking" software,
has developed a form to convert the format of a resume to a format that is optimized
for their system. You can find the form at www.resumix.com.
Resources:
Resumix
AT&T's Resume Advice
Intel's How to Prepare Your Resume
How
to Write an Electronic Resume
Electronic Job Searching
How to Build and Submit Your Resume in ASCII Text
How to Build and Submit Your Resume in ASCII Text
There are millions of people and thousands of companies exchanging information over computer networks such as the Internet. Within this complex network many different word processing applications exist (such as Microsoft Word, WriteNow, ClarisWorks, etc.) which operate on various computer platforms (for example a Macintosh computer versus a PC). This can make it difficult to know how to send information because you may be unsure which specific program or platform the receiver uses to view documents. Fortunately there is a standard, common text language which allows different word processing applications to read and display the same text information. That common text language is known as ASCII text.
What is ASCII text?
ASCII (pronounced "askee") is an acronym which stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange" and is used to describe files that are stored in clear text format. ASCII text is the simplest form of text, meaning there is no formatting mechanism within the document and the text is not platform or application specific. For example, ASCII is the text widely used when you read and write e-mail because it is a simple text language whose main purpose is the exchange of text information (referring to information typed within the message body of an e-mail and not to enclosures or attachments). This explains why the attempt to bold words or format paragraphs doesn't work in e-mail. Because of its simplicity, ASCII text enables anyone to construct an on-line resume so when prospective employers retrieve your resume via the Internet or e-mail, they will be able to view it no matter what kind of computer they are using.
How does ASCII work?
In technical terms, ASCII is a coding scheme which assigns numeric values to letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and certain other characters. By standardizing the values used for these characters, ASCII enables computers and computer programs to exchange information regardless of platform. There are 128 standard ASCII codes, each of which can be represented by a 7 digit binary number: 0000000 through 1111111. Because ASCII is the de facto worldwide standard for these code numbers, the standard ASCII character set is universal among microcomputer hardware and software. This is good news for Internet users because now you can write or paste a text document, your ASCII resume, into an Employer's Online Response Form, CareerMosaic's ResumeCM, or the message field of an e-mail document, and it will be easily viewed regardless of the type of computer platform you and the receiver use to transfer the information.
How do I write my resume in ASCII?
To create an ASCII resume, all you need to do is type your resume using your favorite word-processing application, and then save it as a text only document (sometimes also called Rich Text Format or RTF). This should be an option under your "save" or "save as" command. You can also use a simple text program to compose your resume.
Since your resume will appear as ASCII text, it will not recognize special formatting commands specific to your word-processing program, therefore, you must watch for these common mistakes:
1. Special characters (such as "smart quotes," or mathematical symbols) - these do not get accurately transferred in the text save; avoid using special characters;
2. Tabs - do not use tabs; use your spacebar instead;
3. Alignment - the default for ASCII is to make everything left justified (which is the preferred format for scanning resumes and online viewing) so if you want to indent a sentence or center a heading, use the spacebar;
4. Word wrap - do not use this feature when composing your resume; instead use hard carriage returns to insert line breaks;
5. Fonts - fonts will become whatever a computer uses as its default face and size so boldface, italics, and various sizes will NOT appear in the ASCII version;
6. Spell check - check your document before you save it as a text file;
7. Proofread - make sure to read over your entire resume after you paste it in the message field and before you hit the submit button.
What does a resume in ASCII look like?
Click here for an example of what a resume in ASCII text looks like.
Where do I post my ASCII resume?
Remember, once you've constructed your ASCII resume, you can save this file and cut and paste it anywhere on the Web! So when employers request that you forward your resume in ASCII text via e-mail, you'll already have the document ready to send. Good Luck!
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