Tips On Submitting Your Resume
More and more companies are improving their recruiting effectiveness
with the use of resume databases. Consequently, your resume must be as functionable as possible.
The important message here is "keep it simple." The easier it is for the database to read your
resume, the more hits it will get, and as a result the more visibility your resume will gain.
A "scannable" resume has standard fonts, crisp and dark type and offers plenty of facts for
the OCR technology to extract—the more keywords and facts that you provide, the more opportunities
you have for your skills to match available positions.
Preparing a "scannable" resume is like preparing a traditional resume, you focus on readability and content.
When preparing your resume, try using the tips below to land the job of your dreams.
Cover letter tips:
- Your cover letter should be brief and specify the job requisition number(s) of the job(s) for which you are
applying.
- Please do not send theses, dissertations, list of publications, references, etc.
Resume content tips:
- Place your name at the top of the page on its own line. Use standard address format below the name. List each
phone number on its own line.
- Use enough key words to define your skills, experience, and
education.
- Increase your list of key words by including specifics. For
example, list the names of software you use.
- Describe your experience in specific words rather than vague descriptions.
- Use jargon and acronyms specific to your industry but spell out the acronyms.
Tips to maximize your visibility:
- To maximize our computer's ability to read your resume, provide the cleanest hard-copy original (when submitting
via U.S. mail) and use a standard style resume.
- A poor quality resume that includes unusual formatting such as a newspaper or newsletter layout, graphics or lines,
type that is too
light, or colored paper make it difficult for the computer to read.
Tips to maximize the scanability of your resume:
- Use white, standard weight (20 lbs.), 8 1/2 X 11 paper, printed on one side only. (Hard-copy only-laser printed if
possible)
- A sans serif font of 12 to 14 points, (e.g. Helvetica or Courier).
- Avoid fancy treatments.
- Avoid vertical and horizontal lines, graphics, and boxes.
- Avoid two-column formats that look like newspapers or newsletters.
Additional tips:
- When submitting a resume, use electronic mail if possible, this always produces the best quality.
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