Writing a Resume: Scannable & Electronic Resumes
Between 35% and 50% of the major employers in the United States now use some type of OCR (optical character recognition) scanner to input résumés into their recruiting and employment tracking systems without that résumé ever being read by a human being. That percentage is growing every day.
Also, some companies will only accept résumés submitted electronically. When a hiring manager is searching the data base for candidates, he or she will search first by categories such as degree, major or GPA and secondly by "key words." For example, in looking for an accountant these key words might be things like IRS, CPA, accounts payable, spreadsheet, or audit. Whenever you think your résumé may be scanned or when it is to be submitted electronically directly into a database, you need to follow a few guidelines:
- Include as many key words as possible, even if it means lengthening your resume, because computers don't care about length as humans do.
- Include geographic names, particularly if you are interested in working in that location.
- Use popular, non-decorative typefaces such as Times Roman or Courier with font sizes between 10 and 14.
- Use a standard resume style with headings.
- Do not use two-column or newspaper formats, graphics, italics, boldface, underlining, horizontal or vertical lines, boxes, or shading.
- Make sure your name is at the top of every page in its own line with nothing above it.
- When mailing, do not fold or staple it, but place it in a flat envelope with your cover letter.
There is also a growing trend toward emailing résumés. These same basic rules should apply when submitting a résumé and letter electronically. If you are submitting your résumé to one of the database sites on the web, be careful about putting your address and phone number out there for the world to see if you do not want that information to be public knowledge. Also, these databases should be free of charge; never pay to have your résumé submitted.
