Advanced Resume Concepts ::: Electronic Resumes by Pat Kendall ::: ASCII, HTML, Scannable, Keyword Strategy

Technology is rapidly changing the face of traditional job searching – as evidenced by recent statistics showing that more than 80 percent of employers use the Web for recruiting.

Since the majority of resumes are processed electronically (via OCR scanning or direct database input), we must re-examine how we write and design resumes. We have a different audience now and the rules have changed.

Keyword Strategies
ASCII Resumes
Create ASCII Resume
HTML / Web Resumes
PDF Resumes
Scannable Resumes

Electronic resumes fall into several categories, but to simplify matters, we are focusing on the most common e-resume issues: e-mail / ASCII resumes, Web resumes, scannable resumes, and keyword strategy.

ASCII / E-Mail Resumes

Picture this: Instead of circling ads in the Sunday paper, you turn your computer on, log in to an Internet job bank and type in the appropriate keywords. Within seconds, your computer screen displays a list of job leads, selected to meet your specific requirements. With another couple of keystrokes, your e-mail resume is transferred to potential employers – no paper, no stamps, no delays!

E-mail has not only revolutionized communication, but has become the cornerstone of electronic job searching. E-mail resumes are basically plain text (ASCII) documents without the formatting enhancements. Appearance doesn't matter, though, as the primary beauty of ASCII-formatted resumes is that any employer can read them, no matter what kind of computer system they have.

How to Create an E-Mail / ASCII Resume

First, make a copy of your existing resume. Give this new document a different name, then make any needed changes (such as adding your e-mail address or incorporating keywords). Next, use use your word processor's SAVE AS function to save the resume as a plain text or text only file. You may get a warning about losing your formatting enhancements, but that's okay – that's what we're trying to do.

After saving it in text format, exit your word processor, then open the document again. In doing this, you'll find that the formatting enhancements have been stripped from the resume. Bolding, italics, ruling lines and such are gone. In some cases, bullets will automatically turn into asterisks (*) or dashes (-), but if not, make these replacements yourself.

Finally, you'll want to clean up any extra spaces or awkward gaps caused by tabs. When you're done, your name should be at the top, flush left, with your address, phone and e-mail address stacked underneath. Click here for a sample.

Regardless of your original format, your categories should be left flush and the body text directly underneath. You can add one hard return between paragraphs that are not separated, but if you add more returns, they won't “hold” and may cause problems later... so don't doctor things up too much. To check your changes, simply save the document, exit and open again to review the results.

Before e-mailing this resume, it's a good idea to check and see how it holds up. To do this, send the document to yourself and print it out and see what it looks like. In most cases, some additional clean-up will be needed before it's ready to use.

How to Send an eMail Resume

In a Windows-based America Online program, this is how it's done:

In America Online, Go to FILE (top left corner), click on OPEN, go to the directory where you stored the resume, and click on the file to open it. The document will appear on your screen. (If you are not thoroughly familiar with how to navigate the directories on your computer, you may find it easier to store your ASCII resume on a disk.)
Click anywhere in your text. Press the "control" key (CTRL) and the letter "A" which captures all of the text. Press the SHIFT key plus the DELETE key to place a copy on your Clipboard (a temporary storage area in your computer).
Open COMPOSE MAIL, click on the mail screen with your cursor, and press SHIFT + INSERT, which moves the document from the Clipboard onto your mail screen.
Review your resume and make any last minute adjustments or additions. Fill in the subject line with the job target or advertised position.
Type in the employer's e-mail address and click on the SEND button.

In the last couple of years, HTML or Web resumes have played an increasing role in online job searching. Sample Web Resume

HTML formats also benefit those who need a broader, visually-oriented portfolio, since Web pages can include include photographs, links to other Web sites, design/layout graphics, streaming video, and other high-tech amenities.

Whether it's an online eFolio or a one-page HTML resume, Web-hosted documents offer unique benefits such as HTML e-x-p-a-n-dability, 24/7 presence, attractive appearance, and 100% compatibility.

So how do you determine the keywords for your profession? All you need to do is a little research: Review ads and job postings for your "targeted" jobs and make a list of the qualifications, technical expertise, industry jargon, product knowledge, and personality traits that employers are looking for in your field. For instance, typical keywords for a secretary might include:

If your resume includes a qualifications summary, it may already contain the appropriate keywords. If you have a standard chronological resume, adding a keyword-based summary will optimize your results.

The first example shows a "keyword-heavy" summary statement for a sales professional, with the sales keywords marked in red:

Some experts suggest that the keyword summary should simply provide a "grocery" list of keywords. While adding keywords (with no context) is certainly easier to write, it doesn't have the same impact on the reader as a well-written summary statement.

Computers do not read resumes like people do. If an applicant tracking system is directed to look for cold calling it will not read between the lines and assume that you have cold calling experience because you worked in outside sales for 15 years! In short, you should present your qualifications as if the reader is simply comparing the words on the resume to a list of desired qualifications, since that is precisely what happens when the computer scans for keywords.

However—the newer and more sophisticated "keyword extraction" systems can read keywords in context and can interpret whether your keywords have credibility based on the surrounding text.

Best Approach: Add appropriate keywords in context to build credibility with human readers and optimize your computerized keyword score. Avoid using keyword lists. Thinking that you can use the same keyword multiple times (to up your score) is counterproductive, as this can be interpreted by humans and computerized systems as keyword spamming.

Basically, a scannable resume is a text-focused (as opposed to design-focused) document. In most "resume" books, scannable resumes are depicted as austere, but that does not have to be the case. Scannable resumes can be very attractive and work just as well as the "Plain Jane" variety. Sample

The main thing you want to achieve with a scannable resume is this: You want nothing to get in the way of a clean and accurate scan – no visual distractions to confuse the OCR (optical character recognition) scanner that reads the resume. The most scannable documents are those that (in addition to the guidelines below) have high-quality letter forms (send an original), high contrast (crisp black print on white paper), and no columns that could turn your well-written phrases into gobble-de-gook after the document is scanned.

Follow the guidelines below to quickly convert your traditional resume into a scan-friendly format:

Last but not least, always place your name at the top of the page, as scanners assume that whatever is at the top is your name. If your resume has two pages, place your name and a “page two” designation on the second page, and attach with a paper clip – no staples.

Multiple columns, newspaper-style layouts, landscape printing, and designer fonts are all on the “no-no” list. Unfortunately, scanning systems have different capabilities, so it's difficult to make recommendations that will apply to all of them. So unless you know the specific limitations of the system, eliminate typographical enhancements, especially underlining and italics. Bolding is almost always okay.

Avoid faxing the resume to recruiters and employers (unless specifically requested), as faxing substantially degrades text and reduces the number of readable keywords. However, some employers use OCR-capable equipment to “read” faxed resumes, so in these cases, faxing is okay if you use a scannable format. If in doubt, back up the fax by sending an ASCII version via e-mail.