USING YOUR ELECTRONIC RESUME FOR YOUR JOB SEARCH

Submitting Your Resume to Resume Databanks

Two major types of resume databanks or web sites exist. Most are databanks that store your resume text (but not its formatting or layout) and make it available to employers who search for people with specific skills and experience. These are easy to use and free for job seekers. Sites include Monster.com, Careershop, Career Mosaic, and many others.

How It’s Done

First, let’s look at the databank-style resume web sites. Follow the site’s links to register with the site. Each site will want to get some basic information about you. Rather than refer to it as registering, some will indicate they want you to “create a new account” or “store your resume.” You’ll generally have to select a user name and a password, although some sites assign these to you. Many people use their own name or a nickname for a password. In any case, record this information. Keep track of the user name and password you use at each site.

You could try to use the same user name and password with each site, but if a user name or password has already been used, you’ll be told to select another.

The resume you’re going to give the web sites will be your plain-text resume. The text isn’t pretty, but it is functional.

Once you’ve created a text-only resume, the basic procedure for most web sites is similar. Fill out the forms on your screen (with your name, address, and other vital pieces of information), and then paste your entire resume into a larger window provided for that purpose. That’s about all there is to it.

Some sites also prompt you to supply a cover letter in another window. Create a short cover letter that hits your key skills and experience. In the world of electronic resumes, cover letters are often ignored, so if you want yours to have impact, keep it short and to the point.

Privacy

If you’re concerned about your employer discovering you’re job hunting, or concerned that your name and e-mail address are being made available to marketers, follow the link to the site’s privacy policy statement and read it. Some sites don’t have one available. Those that do usually state that they will not disclose specific or personal information to outside parties without your permission. But the organization behind the resume web site may “offer third-party services and products to you based on the preferences that you identify in your registration and at any time thereafter” (in other words, send you junk mail), as in the case of Monster.com. If you are employed you may want to post your resume only at the safest sites. The safest sites require the organization interested in you to e-mail you and tell you who they are. You can then respond by e-mail indicating you are interested. With other sites, the resume databank will contact you by e-mail and ask you to reply if you are interested in the organization, which will be revealed to you at that time.

If your concern is that your present employer may see your resume on the web and find out that you are looking for a new job, look for options in each site that allow you to make your resume nonsearchable. This means the web site will contact you for permission to show your resume to interested employers instead of including it in the results of any search conducted by any employer. Not all resume web sites offer this option.

Another option to control the privacy of your posted resume is to remove the names of your last two employers, and instead of your name and address at the top, just list your e-mail address. Also at the top would be a request that interested organizations e-mail you and indicate who they are and a little more about the position. Such a technique could cause some employers to skip you, but those really interested would not be deterred. For maximum privacy, obtain a new e-mail account that you will use just for the job search. Create an e-mail address that does not contain your first or last name or your initials.

Like other web sites, many career and resume sites use cookies. These are files placed on your computer by web sites you visit in order to recognize you when you return and to target online ads to your demographic. (Preferences can be set within your computer to refuse to accept some or all cookies, but this setting will stop you from visiting some sites.)

Useful features often included in resume web sites:

• Clear instructions, including information on how many characters will fit on each line (so that you can put in manual line breaks accordingly)

• A window where you can paste the entire resume

• An option for a confidential resume, which means that the web site will contact you for permission to show the resume to interested employers; this can prevent your current employer from stumbling across it

• A statement of the web site’s privacy policy

• A preview button that allows you to view the resume after pasting it into the window

Tips to keep in mind when building and submitting your resume:

• Record your user name and password for each site. In some cases you will select these; in others they will be assigned to you.

• Start with a finished resume. Save it as a text (.txt) file. It will lose any special formatting such as centering, bold and italic type, and bullets. You can then copy and paste this version into the “paste your resume here” windows provided by the web sites.

• Check on how long the site will keep your resume.

A SCANNABLE RESUME

Although more and more companies are preferring that resumes be sent to them electronically by e-mail, many companies are still scanning resumes into their resume databank. When a paper resume comes in, someone in HR will scan the resume and use the optical character recognition (OCR) software to submit it to the resume databank. At that time it becomes available to a manager who can then find it through a key word search.

Scanners, and the OCR software that translates the images into words, have limitations. Many cannot properly interpret italics and if the print is too small, the OCR software will not recognize the letters, creating typos throughout the resume. In the next five years scanners and OCR software may reach a level of sophistication where they can even read the handwriting of physicians. Until that time arrives, it is best to follow the rules that virtually ensure a one-hundred-percent accurately scanned resume.

Take the time to insert your key words so employers can find you. Personnel file drawers containing resumes have for years been referred to as black holes. Once a resume got in a file drawer, it never seemed to see the light of day again. At least now, if you understand the following rules for creating a scannable resume, your resume will pop up on many computer screens and you’ll have the opportunity to sell yourself.

Paper resumes sent to employers, who then scan them into their resume databank, must be formatted in such a way that all the words you’ve used to describe yourself go into the databank exactly as you composed them. If done incorrectly, your scanned resume could enter the databank filled with typographical errors. Resumes with such errors rarely result in interviews.

Tips On Using Your Resume

Whenever possible, resumes should be sent to a specific person. If the organization is identified in the ad, call and ask for the best person to address your cover letter to. Make sure you ask how their name is spelled and if it is female or male. Mr. Chris Smith is a lot different than Ms. Kris Smith. Although not every organization will give you a name, many will. Then address your cover letter to that person with the correct title. While you have a person from that organization on the phone, also ask if they scan resumes. If they don’t, send only one version of your resume, the one that visually looks the best. If you simply don’t know whether your resume will be scanned, and the organization has over one hundred employees, send both versions. Few companies under one hundred employees scan resumes.

Creating A Scannable Resume

Many organizations with one hundred or more employees will scan your paper resume into their resume database. When a resume arrives at an organization which scans and stores resumes, it first passes through an electronic scanner which in essence takes a picture of the page. It then must be analyzed by the OCR software to change it from an image to a plain-text file that can then be stored in a database and accessed. Problems can occur in both the scanning and analyzing stages. If there is not a good contrast between the paper and letters, the scanner may not take a good picture of the page. This could occur when a resume with black ink on dark blue paper is scanned. If the letters are too small or if an unusual font has been used, the OCR software simply cannot recognize the letters and the resume will be unreadable.

Scanners and OCR software are constantly improving so that the newest high-end hardware and software may have little trouble with typical resumes. The problem is that many organizations are still using older hardware and software, and you have no way of knowing who is state of the art and who is not. What this means is that the great-looking resumes that people create with their computers and laser printers will need to be modified.

Although it seems like extra work to create a scannable resume, it will take little extra time if you follow a few simple suggestions. Following these instructions should lead to a resume which is scanned and stored with one hundred percent accuracy.

Since many companies are still scanning paper resumes into their resume databanks, it’s important to send a resume that will scan properly. Keep in mind that many scanning systems have no trouble with some of the items I’ll mention, but it is better to be safe than sorry. Since many scanning systems have trouble with underlining, it is simply better to eliminate underlining. Underlining and using too small a font can cause typographical errors to occur. At some companies, if errors are detected, they may be willing to correct four or five errors. They do this by comparing the paper resume with the ASCII version now in the resume databank. Words that the OCR software had trouble with will use a tilde character, which looks like ~. The clerk will look for tilde marks (~) and then use the paper resume as a guide to make corrections. If ten or more are found they may correct a few or none at all. Some organizations will merely ensure that your name, address, phone number, and objective are correct. Errors in other portions of the resume may be left as they are. The following sentence appeared in the resume of one of my clients:

Placed over 100 people with disabilities into competitive jobs, a rate 30-40% above the norm.

After it was scanned into the databank the sentence became:

Placed ove~ 100 people with disabilities into competitive jobs, a rate 3040~ above the nomm.

You can see why it is important to create a scannable resume. The ~ symbol is placed there by the OCR software, acknowledging that a letter or symbol is there but it cannot properly decipher it. In the case of the 30-40% portion, the OCR did not detect the hyphen and it could not decipher the percent sign. The word norm became nomm. In this case part of the scanning problem was due to using a 10-point font. I do not recommend using a font smaller than 11-point for resumes that will be scanned, and 12-point is preferred.