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Electronic Resumes

Types of Electronic Resumes

1. Posting a Resume to a Recruitment Website:
   An ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) resume consists of 127 standard characters, much like a typewriter. ASCII (aka Plain Text, Text Only, or Rich Text) resumes are rarely printed and are meant to be uploaded to an employer’s website in their online resume building by cutting and pasting appropriate sections. It should contain a list of key words that are used by employers to find a match.
2. Scannable Resume:
   A paper resume that focuses on key words, not looks, and the information is transferred from the paper resume into a resume database system. Once a resume has been scanned by a computer into the tracking system, employers can identify potential candidates by searching the database using key words.
3. E-mailing a Resume to an Employer:
   An ASCII resume is meant to be sent by e-mail to an employer and should contain key words that are used by employers to find a match. When opening a new e-mail, paste the resume into the e-mail message. Don’t e-mail as an attachment-it is one more step for someone who is already too busy.

Tips for Creating Electronic Resumes

• If printing, use white paper, 8 ½ x 11, one side only, laser printed original
• Use sans serif fonts such as Universe, Helvetica, Palatino or Ariel
• Use a font size of 10 to 14
• Place your name at the top of the page on its own line
• Use standard address format below your name
• List each telephone number on its own line and don’t use parentheses around the area code
• Use separate line for job title, company name, and location
• When using dates for work experience, put beginning and ending date on one line
• Use a space around slashes
• Use asterisks or dashes
• Use all capital letters for headings
• Use key words, buzz words, skill words that are nouns, not verbs
• Use a hard return instead of word wrap
• Make everything left justified
• Avoid using page numbers-the resume is read on a computer screen and there is no distinction between pages
• Avoid foreign characters
• Avoid boxes, horizontal or vertical lines, solid or hollow bullets because they may be interpreted as the letter o
• Avoid bold, italics, graphics
• Avoid two-column format
• Avoid tabs, centering text, and underlining
• Proofread and spell check document before hitting the "Send" or "Submit" button