Ask. Learn from readily available, direct, up-to-date experience.
All membership sites have worked long and hard to extend a helping hand to job-changing executives. The concerned, creative and helpful people at Netshare come immediately to mind in this regard. However, I know the managements of the other two sites as well, and can state with conviction that all are sincerely eager to assist their members.
Sure, you'd like your online resume to have all the typographic features of your handsome hand-delivered paperwork, with bold type for headlines, Italics in a few places, neat columns of figures, etc. Well don't count on it! At least not until Internet technology has advanced far beyond its current capabilities. Here are some helpful observations and tips:
If your recipient supplies instructions, take advantage of them. Currently, about 60% of the outstanding search firms suggest that you submit your unsolicited resume as a Microsoft Word document. Do as they specify. Then, of course, your resume will retain all of its attractive formatting. Some other firms have an elaborate questionnaire for you to fill in. Most, however, merely provide an e-mail address for receiving resumes. You must decide how to proceed.
Never, NEVER send your resume as an appended file unless specifically instructed to do so. This point is worth repeating and explaining. The reasons: (1) Many search firms and companies will not open any file from a stranger for fear of getting a virus. Forget why you're sure your file cannot be anything but safe. Those firms have a policy! And it says trash your submission.(2) There are so many possible mismatches among even the most popular brands and versions of software and inside- the-company systems, that whatever you send may not open on the first click. Sadly, nobody has the time or inclination to experiment with multiple programs, trying to open an unsolicited resume. Plenty more resumes are waiting in line after that one. So trash it and move on!
These are harsh facts, but you'd better face them.
Include your name in the subject line of your e-mail submitting your resume. "Melissa Jones Resume" is a very straightforward and helpful label for a resume e-mail or an appended file. Sadly, most executives say something like "Resume Submission." Or worse, "Resume Doc#3 Final."
Make a generic electronic resume, formatted so that you can cut-and- paste it into an e-mail or the resume input area of virtually any Internet employment site. Here are a few step-by-step instructions for converting your beautifully formatted on-paper resume into a form that will e-mail smoothly and be easily digested into a recipient's database when it arrives:
- Open a new document in your word-processing program... Compose your e-mailable resume in this new document or merely import an already created resume.
- Set your margins for a 6.5 inch line.
- Select a type face that does not involve proportional spacing.
4. Emphasize your name and topic headings... simply. Probably you'll merely type them in capital letters. (All caps are OK for emphasis within your resume, but not in your cover letter where they would be considered impolite "shouting," as they are in Internet chat rooms, etc.)
Indeed, you cannot be anonymous when posting in any database open to the public and/or to recruiters willing to pay a fee if you include a listed phone number or an e-mail address with your actual ISP, both of which can be easily investigated to find your identity.
THISite.com provides messaging service that conceals your e-mail address. Moreover, entirely apart from Thisite, you can get untraceable free addresses from HotMail, Yahoo, and many others.
5. Use the space bar to indent; do not use tabs. If tabs have been used, delete them and replace them with space bar-created spacings. Even taking that precaution, I personally have never been able to successfully communicate a complex chart such as the one on page 211. It looks OK when I send. It does not when it arrives at many of its destinations. Maybe the state of the art will have improved by the time you read this. But my best advice at the moment of writing these words is to forget about achieving perfect-looking charts in your e-resume. They'll communicate, even if they look ragged.
6. Run your spell-check. Also proofread very carefully. "To" instead of "or" and a missing "not" won't be caught by the spellcheck. Mistakes abound in resumes... and especially in electronic ones, because those often are not run and checked on paper prior to transmission. This is a hazard you can easily avoid.
7. Do a "Save As." Name. And keep a permanent copy on your hard drive. When you save, choose the most basic and generic option... ASCII (pronounced "Askee" and short for American Standard Code for Information Interchange). You will probably have 3 types of ASCII to choose from, possibly without the ASCII acronym even being mentioned: Plain Text.txt, Rich Text.rtf, and Hypertext.html. Use Plain Text, unless a specific site has suggested you use Rich Text (which preserves some formatting if your recipient can cope with it, but causes problems if not). Hypertext.html, of course is the language of Internet sites-and a whole other subject- but it's inappropriate for the simple e-mailing we're talking about here. If you're using a Macintosh, choose Simpletext.
8. Test your handiwork. Send your resume as an e-mail to several friends. They will have different computers and software, and may note problems you can correct. You'll have many future opportunities to cut-and-paste your carefully perfected electronic resume-or a variation-into e-mails and resume solicitation pages of recruiter and employer Internet sites. It pays to make your self-representation tool as good as you possibly can.
