The Electronic Resume
Explosion
Every
day job seekers are starting new positions that they discovered over
the Internet. In the past five years the value of the
Internet for job seekers has exploded. There are
dozens of commercial sites where you can post your electronic resume, giving
you the opportunity to be contacted by employers seeking someone with your
background. From among tens of thousands of resumes
within a resume databank, yours can be found in less
than a minute.
There
are now thousands of employers that have their own company web sites. Many of them list and describe open positions. When you discover a desirable position, you can send your
resume to them by e-mail or via a form on their web site.
Because
of all these technological developments, the electronic resume is having great
impact on the way resumes are created and the way job seekers are finding jobs. Because the number of job seekers submitting their resumes
electronically has grown so rapidly, and because so many employers are now
using this technology, no solid job search would be complete without creating
an electronic resume that will sell you. Keep in mind
that the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that approximately 85% of all
available jobs are never advertised, even on the web. While
posting your electronic resume increases your chances of getting the job you
want, do not rely on it as the answer to your job searching efforts.
In
the next pages I will show you how to make plain-text,
scannable, and web resumes that can be used in your
electronic job search.
TYPES OF RESUMES
For
your job search you should have three types of resumes: formatted, plain-text,
and scannable. You may want
a fourth type, the web resume.
Formatted:
The formatted resume is the resume you would create with MS
Word, WordPerfect, or other word processors. Those
programs allow you to use italics, bold type, bullets, columns, your choice of
typefaces (fonts), and other features. These are the features that let you be creative and produce an
attractive looking resume to print or to send as an e-mail attachment.
Plain-Text:
Plain-text, also known as text format and ASCII format (pronounced as-kee), is a universal format that virtually all computers
with all operating systems can interpret and use. ASCII
stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
Your plain-text resume would be used whenever
sending your resume as text within an e-mail message to an employer or storing
it in a commercial resume databank.
Scannable: The scannable resume is the paper resume you send to employers
who scan resumes into resume databanks. Virtually all
formatting features are removed, making the resume less attractive. The point to keep in mind is that no one else’s will look
any more attractive than yours. It is important to
create a resume in such a way that when it is scanned, all of
your words will be properly interpreted by the optical character recognition
(OCR) software.
Web
Resume: A web resume is a resume that has its own address on the web (instead
of being stored as text in a commercial resume databank). It
is possible to turn it into a portfolio resume, which includes samples of your
written work, photographs, or audio and video clips. The
use of web resumes is growing, but still uncommon. Employers
can use search engines (using key words) to find web resumes.
Often an employer would look at your web resume after having found your
resume in a resume databank and then typing in the web address (URL) to find
it.
HELPFUL HINTS AND DEFINITIONS FOR ELECTRONIC
RESUMES
The
Internet and the World Wide Web: The Internet is a worldwide network of
computers that can pass information back and forth. Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) and a network known as the backbone, with servers and
routers, keep track of information and can reach the desired server to pull
information from it. The World Wide Web (or “web”) is
the graphical portion of the Internet that permits you to obtain graphically
presented text with drawings, photographs, video, and audio. The
Internet also permits messages, known as electronic mail or e-mail, to be sent from one computer to another in a matter of seconds.
Resume
Databank: A resume databank is any database that is designed to store
resumes, with the ability to retrieve them through the use of key words. Resume databank and resume database are basically
synonymous. There are commercial resume databanks that
permit you to post your resume so that employers and recruiters can access the
database and find people whose background fits what they are looking for. Most are free to the job seeker. Companies
also have their own resume databanks, enabling you to submit your resume
directly to them.
URL:
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is also known as a web address. Each web site has a unique URL, enabling you to find and
view that site. Most URLs are in lowercase and begin
with http://www. followed by the domain name, such as cmr-mvp. This is followed by the
extension, which indicates the type of organization it is. A
commercial or business site uses .com. A school site
uses .edu, while a nonprofit site uses .org, and a
government entity uses .gov. Other
extensions are used but these are the most common.
Text
Editors: A text editor, such as Notepad in MS Word, allows you to edit your
plain-text (ASCII) resume or any other type of plain-text document. From a text editor you can copy and paste your resume or
document into an e-mail message you are sending to an employer.
Getting
Connected: To get connected to an Internet Service Provider (ISP), you
first need a computer with a 486 or Pentium processor (or equivalent). If you have a Macintosh you’ll need a PowerPC or a 68000
processor or higher. A representative of an ISP or
those who know computers can tell you if yours will be sufficient. Your computer also needs a modem. Your
modem should provide speeds of at least 28.8 kb, meaning they can transfer data
from a web site at up to 28,800 bytes per second. Most
modems purchased in the last three years will be 56 kb, meaning they are twice
as fast as the 28.8-kb modem. If you’ve heard about
fast connections, you know the terms cable modem and DSL. Both
types provide speeds five to twenty times faster than a 56-kb modem.
You
may have received a CD-ROM from AOL, MSN (Microsoft Network), or others asking
you to connect with them. They then give you 50-250
hours of free access for one month. This can get you
started and then you can decide whether you like the service.
After your free month you can get unlimited monthly service for $20 to
$25. You can also get limited monthly service for
anywhere from free to $5.00 and up. Be careful of
these plans. If you use more than your monthly
allotted hours, a significant charge will incur on your bill for each hour over
your limit. Finally, there are many ISP’s who will
provide free Internet connections at unlimited or limited hourly service. A few of these are Juno at www.juno.com and Free I-Net at
www.freeinet.com. Ask your friends and computer
experts about their experience before signing on with an ISP.
Try to stay away from an ISP that asks you to sign a three-year
agreement. Three years in Internet
time is a lifetime.
The
CD-ROM will come with a web browser, probably either Microsoft Internet
Explorer or Netscape Navigator, and everything you need to get started. If you have trouble installing the software, you can call
your ISP and they will walk you through the process by phone.
Free
E-Mail Services: Having an e-mail account is part of a successful online
job search. It provides an easy means of sharing information
with potential employers and job search contacts.
Each
of the services listed below offers free e-mail accounts that can be accessed
through any computer connected to the Internet. It
takes about 15 minutes to sign up and get your account.
Yahoo Mail (www.yahoo.com)
Hotmail (www.hotmail.com)
NetAddress (www.netaddress.com)
CoolMail (www.coolmail.com)
ApexMail (www.apexmail.com)
AltaVista Mail (www.altavista.com)
SNAP Mail (www.snap.com)
If
You Don’t Have A Computer: Many libraries now offer Internet access. You have to sign up for a session, usually no more than an
hour at a time, but you can accomplish a lot. If you
use one of the free e-mail programs you can obtain your messages from any
computer that has Internet access. If you’re unemployed you may have access to computers at your
state Employment Security offices, often known as
Attachments:
Attachments are files that can be added to an e-mail message. During a job search this would typically be a resume or
cover letter. People often send MS Word attachments
and most people’s computer systems can open them up and read them. Once opened, the resume can be saved as a Word document. People also attach plain-text resumes.
CREATE A KEY WORD RESUME
Creating
a key word resume is the first step in producing a resume that can be submitted
to resume databanks. First of all a resume must be
searchable and retrievable. This is accomplished through the use of key words.
Searchable and Retrievable
Once
a resume makes it into a resume databank, it will be found when a recruiter
asks the databank to supply all of the resumes of those people who have a
certain type of background. They do this by searching
for resumes that contain their desired key words. If
the employer wanted a highly skilled mechanical engineer the key words might
be: mechanical engineer, BS, and PE. The resumes that
become available to the recruiter will all be from people who have a BS in
engineering, they will be practicing mechanical engineers, and they will have
been doing it long enough to have gained the professional designation
Professional Engineer. Your challenge is to determine
the key words employers might use to find someone with your background and then
to make sure your resume has them.
Put Key Words Into Your
Resume
The
best time to start identifying your key words is when you’re writing your job
sketches. Of course, if you’ve
already created your resume, now is the time to see which key words are already
in your resume and which should be added.
The
most common way for resumes to be accessed is through key words. The term “key words” simply means that employers will
determine the desired background of the ideal candidate, and then will
determine which words and terms the ideal candidate would likely have in his or
her resume.
Start
the process by simply listing all of the words and terms that you think an
employer might look for. Then seek ways to get those
words into your resume. The best way is to place
yourself in the position of an employer seeking someone with your background. In essence you are asking, “How would I find myself?” Key words are usually nouns such as marketing, Visual
Basic, MS Windows, project management, graphic design, behavior modification. Key words can also be gerunds, noun-like verbs, like
negotiating and analyzing.
There
are several ways to identify key words:
1. Search
the want ads in your field and notice what words they specify in the
requirements and duties sections.
2. Talk to
people in the field and ask what they believe the key words would be.
3. Read
professional journals in your field to help identify the current hot terms.
Do
all of these things, but then come back to considering how you would find
yourself if you were looking for someone like you. Produce
as extensive a list as possible and then determine the twenty most likely
terms, and make sure they appear somewhere in your resume. If
some of these words were not already present, look for ways to include them in
existing sentences or create sentences that each use one or more of the key
words.
It’s
helpful to understand how resumes are pulled out of resume databanks. I spent part of a day with a resume databank expert as we
worked together on several searches. Typically, when
we used five key words in our search, we found too few resumes; when we used
only one or two words we sometimes got too many. After
putting in the key words, the database would indicate how many matches had
occurred. When there were too few we eliminated a term
or tried other words to get the right number of matches. When
we used five key words we got fewer resumes because only those with all five
key words were selected. The person putting in the
criteria can also ask for those that possess at least three of the five key
words.
Once
a resume came on screen it often took only five to ten seconds to see whether
that person had the required experience. If not, with
a simple mouse click we were instantly viewing the next resume. This might happen, for example, if we were looking for a
computer programmer with three or more years of Visual Basic experience. If Visual Basic was our only key word, then every resume
that used that term would come up on screen. Sometimes,
however, the person had merely studied Visual Basic and had not developed any
programs in Visual Basic for pay. If three years of
job experience with Visual Basic was required, that
person would be eliminated in less than ten seconds.
When
doing a key word search, resumes will appear on a computer screen one by one,
and the key words in the resume will be highlighted. A
person will skim through each resume to determine which people appear to be
good candidates. When a highly qualified candidate
pops up on the screen, the person reviewing the resumes will print that one. Those not so qualified will simply remain in the database
awaiting future openings for which they may be better qualified.
Observe
what has happened. The inclusion of the right key
words in the person’s resume caused the resume to be selected from within the
database. The resume was then reviewed by someone. At that point the actual experience the person had, and
the quality of the presentation of that experience, determined whether the
resume was printed out.
If
your resume does not contain the right key words, it will never be viewed. If it is not well written, you
will not be offered an interview.
Buzz Words
To
develop your list of key words, begin by including all of the buzz words in
your field. This would include the jargon, technical
terms, and nomenclature in your specialty. List the
current hot terms, the standard terms that have been around for a long time,
and the new terms that may soon be hot. Once you have
your list, decide which ones are appropriate for you.
Synonyms. When you list a term, also list its synonyms. For example, if you list personnel administration as a key
word, also list human resources management. If you
list attorney, list lawyer also. For example, if you
had the term human resource (singular) management, and the key word search by
an organization is human resources (plural) but without the word management,
there would still be a match on most search systems. A
match would not occur on some systems; therefore you
will want to use as many variations of the same key words as possible.
Acronyms. If registered nurse is one of your key words, make
sure that it appears somewhere in the resume as RN. If
you are going to use certified financial planner, make sure that CFP appears as
well.
With
the synonyms and acronyms you are trying to cover all of your bases. If the employer uses human resources management as a key
phrase, while you used personnel administration throughout your resume, the
computer may not see your resume as a match and the employer will never read it. If you only use the term certified financial planner but
the employer searches only for CFP, you also risk not having your resume
viewed.
When
using acronyms realize that personnel clerks often perform the initial screening
of the resume, and neither they nor a human resources manager will be familiar
with all acronyms in all fields. In principle, the
first time you use an acronym which you suspect not all people will recognize,
spell out the acronym and then in parentheses, indicate the acronym. This is how it might appear in the qualifications section
of an RN: Over ten years’ experience as a Registered Nurse (RN), including five
years experience in Emergency Room (ER) and Critical Care (CC). From that point on you can use the acronym without having
to spell it out. You will also have ensured that the
computer will be able to find both the term and the acronym.
Key
words should not be inserted in a resume merely because you feel an employer
might look for them. They must truly be somewhere in
your background. For example, when computer people
list programming languages, most list those they’ve used on the job, as well as
those they’ve studied. That’s perfectly acceptable. Once your resume shows up on the screen, however, it is up
to the employer to determine if your experience and knowledge matches the need. In a telephone or face-to-face interview
you must be prepared to present how extensive your experience actually is.
With
more companies resorting to computerized resume databanks each year, it is in
your best interest to ensure that your resume achieves maximum exposure.
Once
the request goes in for resumes with certain key words, thousands of resumes in
the databank can be searched in less than a minute. The
computer will find all of your key words and highlight them on the screen. Where your key words appear makes no difference to the
computer, but it may to a reader. For that reason many people prefer to use a key word section for
resumes that will be scanned or sent electronically.
Some
of the resume tracking systems used by companies will rank the resumes based on
criteria that consider key words, education, and years of experience. Some give more weight to resumes that have key words early
in the resume. So you may want to include your key
word paragraph when you know or believe it is likely that your resume will go
into a resume databank.
Many
jobs request a bachelor’s degree. If you have tons of
experience, but never quite finished that degree, this could cause you a
problem. If you believe you are qualified for a
position, you will want to prevent yourself from being screened out merely
because you’re ten credits short. Of course, if you
come up on an employer’s screen, you’ll have to have the goods or with a quick
mouse click they’ll be on to another resume. Here are
some ways which can work:
BA (equivalent)
This
would be used by a person who has significant college credits, a lot of seminars, and perhaps a certificate or two from
recognized institutions.
Currently enrolled in BA program
Or
BA (to be completed in June 2001)
Either
of these could be used if appropriate.
Using a Key Word Section
A
key word section is frequently used by people who are e-mailing their resume to
a commercial web site or a company web site, or when sending a paper copy to an
organization that will likely scan it. If you have
created a qualifications section, a key word section will fit right into that
format. For a salesperson it
might work like this.
OBJECTIVE: Sales
Representative
QUALIFICATIONS
Strong
sales background. Consistently exceed quota and always
become a top producer. Effectively build long-term
relationships with accounts. Excellent at cold calling and
adding new accounts.
Areas of experience include: Calling on key accounts; territory
management; sell to OEMs, retail chains, wholesalers, and distributors;
experienced with co-op advertising; marketing; advertising agencies; market
research; repeat and referral business; consultative selling; increase sales;
increase market share; increase profits; cold calls; international sales;
tradeshows; develop collateral material; number one West Coast rep; work
effectively with buyers and merchandise managers; turn around problem
territories.
In
this example the first paragraph already exists and it contains some desirable
key words. The second paragraph is the key word
section. Some of the terms in the key word section
appear elsewhere in the resume but most do not. This
person has just increased the likelihood that her resume will show up on the
employer’s computer screen when initiating a key word search.
If
you choose not to make one of your qualifications paragraphs a key word
section, you can insert a key word section at the end of your resume. Simply label it: Key Words. Then
under this new section, type in a paragraph of key words (nouns and buzz words)
with each key word or each phrase separated by a comma or semicolon. The computer does not care where a key word appears, as
long as they do appear. This key word section would
look virtually identical to the example just above.
A
key word section, while very helpful, is not absolutely essential. You probably have many of the key words already included
in your job descriptions. However, adding this key
word section allows you to easily view all of your key words or key word
phrases at once, thereby ensuring that you have not missed any important ones. Since it can be quite difficult to make sure that all of
your key words, and all of their variations, including synonyms and acronyms,
have been included in a sentence somewhere in the resume, a key word section is
highly recommended.
Some
computer resume databanks rank your resume based on the number of times a key
word appears in your resume. This ranking assumes that
the more times a key word appears in a resume, the greater the likelihood that
this person has more years of experience in this field. On
the other hand, some databanks rank your resume not only on a key word, but on
how recently you submitted your resume. This assumes
that the more recently submitted resumes are from job seekers who are most likely still looking for work.
What
all this means is that you should have the primary key words in your resume
more than once (be appropriate, and don’t overdo it)
and that you should update your resume in any particular databank every couple
months.
That’s
how you create a key word resume. Having taken care of the
key word portion of your resume, it will be
important to create your plain-text resume that can be sent to employers by
e-mail and your scannable paper resume that can be
sent to those employers who will electronically scan your resume into their
databank.
CONVERT A WORD-PROCESSED RESUME TO AN ELECTRONIC
RESUME
In
order to create a resume which will look consistently good when e-mailed,
scanned, or viewed within a text editor, you must use the simplest formatting
possible. This means sacrificing the advanced
formatting features of your favorite word processor, such as italics, columns, bolding, and custom fonts.
Follow
these steps to create a resume that will look good no matter where you send it. These directions will work for MS Word 6.0 and up. Ignore any “lost formatting” warnings that may occur
during this process.
IMPORTANT:
Be sure to save a backup copy of your resume before converting it. Put a copy of your resume on a floppy disk just in case
your hard drive crashes.
If
you are using a word processing package other than MS Word, the steps will be
the same, but some of the special techniques and methods that I suggest are unique to MS Word.
1. Open your formatted resume in your word
processor. Make sure your desired key words are
already in your resume. This should be your final
version that says everything exactly the way you want it.
2.
Go to the File menu and select Save As.
(See Figure A) Choose Text Only in the Save As Type drop down menu at the
bottom of the dialog box. (See Figure B) Name it
something like resume electronic or electronic resume so you know
immediately that this is your electronic version. Click
Save or press Enter to save the file. Immediately a
warning will come on screen that says “Document may contain features that are
not compatible with Text Only format. Do you want to
save the document in this format?” Go ahead and click
Yes. Click Yes whenever that warning comes up in this
process. Make note of which folder or location you
have saved your resume in so you can find it later.
Save As
Figure A
Save
As Text
3. Close
your resume document (not the word processor program), then immediately reopen
it.
Quick
tip: MS Word has a handy feature that allows you to quickly reopen the last
4-9 files you’ve been working on. Simply click on the
File menu and scroll down to the document you want to open. In
this example you can see that “resume electronic.txt” is the most recent file. (See Figure C)
Your
new text resume should now be in the Courier or Courier New font. This automatic font change was done by your word processor
when you selected Text Only as you used the Save As feature. The
Courier font family is a fixed-width printer font that uses the same width for
all characters. Most plain-text editing programs use
Courier.
Note: Office
97 and the newer MS Word programs automatically convert your text settings to
10-point font size. A font size of 10-point is fine
for your plain-text resume that you will e-mail or submit to resume databanks. If you convert this resume to 12-point, and Save As Text Only again, it will revert back to 10-point.
Figure C Accessing Recently Used Files
4. Go to
the File menu to Page Setup. (See Figure D) Change your left and right margins to 1.7" each. (See Figure E) Click OK. Then save your resume. This
should ensure that none of the lines in your resume will exceed 65 characters. This is important because on some systems, the most
characters that can be seen on a screen is 65. This
1.7" rule will work if your word processor has converted your type to
10-point. If it is 12-point
you should set your margins at 1.4" left and right.
Quick Tip: To confirm that none of your lines
exceed 65 characters, highlight the longest line in your resume. Highlight by putting your cursor at the beginning of the
line until it becomes an arrow, then “left” click your mouse and the line will
be highlighted. Then go to the Tools menu and select
Word Count, then look at Characters With Spaces. This
will tell you how many characters (including the blank space between each word)
are in your longest line. If your
longest line has been indented from the left margin, add the number of spaces
to the number you were just told, and make sure the combined total is less than
65.
Figure D Page Setup
Figure E Setting Margins
5.
Check to see if you’ve used any tabs. If so, remove them. Without
removing the tabs your plain-text resume will not look the way you want it to. If you have just a few tabs the easiest way to remove them
is to simply delete them. If you have over fifteen,
utilize the Quick Tip which follows.
Quick Tip:
To remove tabs in seconds, click on
Edit in the menu at the top left of the screen and then click on Replace. A small dialog box will appear on your screen. In the dialog box, you will see a line that says “Find
What.” Insert a caret (use Shift and enter the number
6 key on your keyboard) along with a small t. (It will look like: ^t) Move your
cursor to the line in the same dialog box that says “Replace With” and insert a
blank space simply by hitting the space bar on your keyboard.
Now click the button on this same dialog box that says “Replace All.” You should then get a message on your screen indicating
how many tabs were found and replaced with blank spaces. Close
both dialog boxes.
6.
Save the resume by going to the File menu
and selecting Save As. Select Text With Line Breaks. (See
Figure F) Close the resume and then immediately reopen it again. There should be line breaks at the end of each line. You’ll know there are line breaks if you see a paragraph
sign (¶) at the end of each line. If you see no
paragraph signs and no dots between words, it means that function has been
turned off. To show those signs, hold down the shift
and control keys, and press the number 8 key. You’ll
immediately see the line breaks.
Saving as Text with Line Breaks
Figure F
7. Now is
your opportunity to edit your resume so you can get it looking the way you want
within the limitations of a plain-text resume. Now
that all the tabs are gone, all text will probably be flush left.
If you
want to indent some portions such as job descriptions you can do that with the
space bar. To indent a line, put the cursor in front
of the first word in the line and press the space bar to create as many spaces
as you desire. If you want to create spaces between
words, simply use the space bar to create as many spaces as you want.
There
are other editing functions you can do. You can
capitalize words you want to emphasize, such as your name, the section titles
such as Education and Employment, or job titles. This
is necessary because saving your resume as plain-text will remove bolding and
italics. If you want to create a bulleted list you can
use the asterisk (*), hyphen (-), or plus sign (+) in place of bullets. This is necessary because when you convert to plain-text,
any existing bullets will be automatically turned to asterisks. If you want to double space between categories or between
paragraphs, this is the time to do it.
8. Once
you have finished editing your plain-text resume, save it one more time.
To see
your results, close your document and your word processor. Reopen
it in a plain-text editor such as Notepad. To open
your resume in Notepad, click on the Start button in the lower left of your
screen. Click on Documents and then click on your
resume. It should now appear in Notepad. Notepad ensures your resume is in plain-text format and
ensures that when it is e-mailed to an employer
databank or is sent to a commercial databank, it will have the same appearance
to employers as you now see in Notepad (or the text editor you are using).
If you
haven’t used your plain-text resume for a while, the above method of opening
your resume in Notepad may not work for you. In that
case click on the Start button, click on Programs, click on Accessories, and
then click on Notepad. (See Figure G)
Click on File and click on Open. The Dialog box
will have a portion that says “Look in:” Click on the folder where you
originally saved it. When you find your text file
click on it and it will come up in Notepad. If your
resume doesn’t look quite right, you can still add or delete spaces and you can
double space between categories or between paragraphs. When
you’re through, save the document by clicking on File
and then clicking on Save.
Test
your plain-text resume by e-mailing it to yourself. Highlight
(select) all of the text in your resume, copy it, and paste the text into an
e-mail message you are e-mailing to yourself. The
reason you send your resume to yourself the first time is to test the formatting
that you just finished working on. If your resume
comes back to you exactly the same way that it was sent, you have a successful plain-text resume.
Figure G Opening Notepad
Quick Tip: For those not familiar with copy and paste I’ll walk
you through the process. To copy the text in your
resume, start by highlighting the entire resume. To do
that click on Edit, then click on Select All. Then go
back to the Edit menu and click on Copy. (See Figure H) Next, open up your e-mail software to start a new e-mail
message. Put your cursor in the space for an e-mail
message where the text will be pasted in. Go back to
the Edit menu and click Paste. (See Figure H) Your entire resume will now be pasted
in the space.
Figure
H Copy
and Paste using Notepad
Once
you have completed the pasting process in the e-mail, click Send. Then open up your e-mailed resume and print it out. If you’re satisfied with the
appearance, you’re ready to send it to employers.
Having
completed all of these steps you are ready to proceed
to the process of actually sending your resume to employers or to commercial
resume databanks.
WARNING: Do not send your resume as a file attachment to an e-mail message unless the employer specifically requests that you do. Pasting your resume directly into the e-mail will ensure that you are not transmitting a virus along with the message.
How
Many Pages?
A
computer does not care how long your resume is. It can
store and retrieve a ten-page resume as easily as a one-page resume. The answer to the question regarding the best length of a
resume remains: It should be long enough to adequately sell you and not so long
that a person hesitates to read it. Most resumes are
one or two pages in length, with a three-page resume being appropriate for some
people.
Electronic
resumes are often a little longer due to the short 65 character lines for
plain-text. For this reason my advice is that one-,
two-, and three-page resumes will work fine. Just make
sure that everything in the resume is there because it helps sell you.
After They See Your Resume
Will They Call?
Having
your resume seen on a person’s monitor will not necessarily result in an
interview. You must have the right background and you
must sell your background well. Creating an effective
electronic resume is not difficult, but it will take additional time. Whether your resume is scanned into a
corporate resume databank or sent by e-mail to a commercial resume databank,
it will work for you only if it contains the right key words and if it is well
written.
Some Systems Will Accept Only One Resume
The
systems at some corporations, Boeing for example, will keep just one version of
your resume in its databank. In such a system, if you
have previously sent a generic resume, but now you are sending a targeted
resume for a specific position, that new resume is the one that will stay on
file. If you haven’t been
called in for an interview in about four weeks, resubmit your generic resume so
that it becomes your resume on file.
In most databank systems it is
relatively easy to update your resume. If you have
moved, added a degree or certification, or completed a successful project,
update your resume and resubmit it. Keep track of your
user name and password for each resume databank. Establish
a routine of writing down your user name and password immediately as you create
it. Some people like to create a Word or Word Perfect
file that contains all of their user names and passwords. Then
they simply cut and paste them in as needed.
Copyright 1985, 1990, 1995, 2002 by Tom Washington
Career Management Resources
1750 112th NE, Suite C-224
425/454-6982