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Tips for Electronic Resumes by Robert Ruff, President, Sovren Group, Inc.
How to Ensure that Recruiting Software Can Read Your Resume
Your resume will not be read by a human until after it is read, parsed, and classified by a computer – and even then it will only be read by a human if it is a good search match. It won’t matter at all how pretty your painted Easter egg looks to a human, if it looks like scrambled eggs to a computer. And if it looks like scrambled eggs, it’s not likely to get any search “hits”.
Computers do not appreciate style or cleverness. Quirky, clever resumes will not be processed correctly by resume software and they will therefore end up in a cold dark place where no one can hear you scream.
The rules for computers are really simple when you remember that computers are not clever. They are like the really smart nerd in your high school History class – big on facts, clueless on how they all fit together and what they all mean. So, let’s make it easy for the computer to like you, ok?
Here are THE RULES: (Click the bold headers to read more ... )
1. Looks are deceiving.
Plain is good. Fancy is bad. Therefore:
a. Do not put anything into headers or footers.
Many resume software programs cannot read information in headers. If you put your contact information into a header, it may never get read by the software, and your resume will not contain information about who you are and how you can be reached. And that’s a bad thing.
Footers are a different problem. The problem with footers is that when the computer reads your resume, the footer data gets inserted into the middle of whatever text spans the two pages. That means that the footer text may be inserted as garbage into critical parts of your resume.
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b. Do not use graphics.
At best, graphics (clip art, photos, logos, anything that is a .bmp or .gif or .jpg or .png, etc.) will be ignored.
At worst, the graphics will be turned into a huge mass of garbage characters, like this:
shppict{\pict\picscalex81\picscaley81\piccropl0\piccropr0\piccropt0\piccropb0\picw7407\pich2408\picwgoal4199\
pichgoal1365\wmetafile8\bliptag159028895\blipupi96{\*\blipuid 097a969f0002499996eb8b27309a3c5c}\bin12896
333333333333 333333 3333333 33333333331 #! 3 333333! #3332 3 3331 #3331 #! 3
33333333333! 3! 3333! 1 #332 2 3332 ! 3333! 2 3333333333333
33333
3333333333333333333 333333333331 ! " 3332 ! #3331 33331
#3331 "! " 33333333333! " 3333! !
#332 2 3332 ! 3333! " 3333333333333333333333333333333 3333
33333333333331 3332 #333! 1 3331 #3331 3333
33333331 3333! #332 3332 ! 3333! 33333333333333333
333333333333333333 33333333333331 3332 3332 3 3331 #3331 333333333333
3333! #333! #3332 ! 3333! 3333333
3333333333333333333 333333333333333333333333333333333333
3333333 33333333333333333333333333333333333333
3333333333333333333333333333333
More likely, the graphics will cause some garbage characters to appear, and will mess up the line spacing, paragraphing, etc. So, your contact information may get distorted or your name may get lost.
c. Do not use “tables” in Microsoft Word™.
Tables are neat and pretty. To humans. Unfortunately, some resume conversion software cannot handle tables and will either scramble the text into an undecipherable mess, or it will space the data with extra lines that may confuse the software.
d. Do not use “fields” in Microsoft Word.
Most resume conversion software cannot read anything contained in “fields”. So we don’t want to use “fields”, do we? If you do not know what a “field” is in Microsoft Word, don’t worry, you are safe.
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2. Contact info comes first.
If you want a job, put your contact info FIRST. That’s “first” as in “first”, not “first” as in “right after the pretty logo”.
Contact info should never be placed on just one or two lines.
WRONG:
Robert H. Ruff - 13403 Myrtlea Lane - Houston, Texas 77079 - 713.562.7112
RIGHT:
Robert H. Ruff
13403 Myrtlea Lane
Houston, Texas 77079
713-562-7112
rruff@sovren.com
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3. Use common header terms to start resume sections, and put them on separate lines.
There is one exception to this rule: contact info. Contact info does NOT get a header. Everything else gets a header.
Your job objective section should start with a header that says
JOB OBJECTIVE
Your Work History section should start with a header that says
WORK EXPERIENCE
Your education section should start with a header that says
EDUCATION
Oh, and by the way, if you went to college, we do not care to hear about your High School, and regardless of your education level, telling us about your Junior High experience is just going to make sure both humans and computers file your resume into a place labeled “Laugh at, but do not hire.”
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4. Do not use “columns” or “tables” formatting for anything.
NEVER use columns or tables to format your education or work history or any other important piece of data on your resume. (And by the way, if it’s not important, it should not be on your resume.)
WRONG:
| Jan. 2003 – Present |
Superb Products, Inc. Parts Manager.
Reduced parts inventory by 10% while eliminating most out-of-stocks. |
| Mar. 2000 – Dec. 2002 |
Doug’s Truck Sales, Inc. Repairman.
Fixed trucks and managed the parts inventory. |
Here’s how the computer may read that:
Jan. 2003 – Present
Mar. 2000 – Dec. 2002
Superb Products, Inc. Parts Manager.
Reduced parts inventory by 10% while eliminating most out-of-stocks.
Dougs Truck Sales, Inc. Repairman.
Fixed trucks and managed the parts inventory.
RIGHT: (uses tabs instead of tables):
Jan. 2003 – Present
Superb Products, Inc. Parts Manager.
Reduced parts inventory by 10% while eliminating most out-of-stocks.
Mar. 2000 – Dec. 2002
Dougs Truck Sales, Inc. Repairman.
Fixed trucks and managed the parts inventory.
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5. Keep like data in like order.
Each job that you list should be described in the same order. If one job is described as
[Dates][Company][Position title]
[Description]
then all of the other jobs should be written in the same style.
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6. Capitalization does matter.
Do not use all caps unless there is a good reason to do so. A good reason to do so is when writing the section headers. A bad reason to do so is when writing a job title.
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7. Do not combine sections.
Never combine several topics or sections into a single section. This is really important!
WRONG:
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS, COMMUNITY SERVICE, AWARDS, TRAINING
RIGHT:
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
I was involved with ....
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Chairman, United Way Campaign for Greater Okowekofobee County
AWARDS
President’s Quarterly Salesmanship Award, 2004
TRAINING
YMCA CPR Training, Level I, 2002
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8. Always end company names with common company name words.
You know that J.M. Huber is an employer company name. Unfortunately, the computer probably does not know that. The solution is to always end a company name with a company word like “Inc. or Co. or Company or LLC or LLP or GmbH”. So, write J.M. Huber as J.M. Huber, Inc. or J.M. Huber Co. You are not applying for a job at J.M. Huber, so they will not care.
And yes, this rule applies to big companies as well as little companies. If you worked for IBM, write IBM, Inc. “Procter & Gamble” should be written as Procter & Gamble, Inc. “Enron” should be written as Enron, Inc., or better yet, as “Major Energy Trading Company”.
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9. Use blank lines between sections/paragraphs, but do not use blank lines within paragraphs.
It is very important that you separate each Work History job and each Education school record with a blank line, and that there are no blank lines within logical paragraphs. “Blank line” means an actual blank line placed there by your word processor program, not just visual spacing that looks like a blank line but really is not.
WRONG:
Systems Integrator / Senior Systems Administrator (Contract)
May 02 – Jun 02
Ablest Technologies
Integrated Criminal Justice Info Systems, Maricopa County AZ
Provided Enterprise Systems Security and Audit needs analysis, methodology, education, product research and recommendations for Department of Public Safety,
ICJIS, and Homeland Security.
Systems Integrator / Senior Systems Administrator (Contract) Nov 01 – Mar 02
SRA International
Internal Revenue Service, Enterprise Systems Management Center, Austin TX &
Washington DC
Provided security process and methodology, product analysis, and product implementation to comply with Treasury and IRS data security policies.
RIGHT:
Systems Integrator / Senior Systems Administrator (Contract)
May 02 – Jun 02
Ablest Technologies Inc.
Integrated Criminal Justice Info Systems, Maricopa County AZ
Provided Enterprise Systems Security and Audit needs analysis, methodology, education, product research and recommendations for Department of Public Safety, ICJIS, and Homeland Security.
Systems Integrator / Senior Systems Administrator (Contract)
Nov 01 – Mar 02
SRA International Inc.
Internal Revenue Service, Enterprise Systems Management Center, Austin TX &
Washington DC
Provided security process and methodology, product analysis, and product implementation to comply with Treasury and IRS data security policies.
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10. Do not save your resume as HTML, PDF, WordPerfect or RTF.
Recruiters want resumes in Microsoft Word. Many resume systems cannot convert PDF, HTML or WordPerfect resumes and will discard them. If you do not want to use Microsoft Word, do NOT use RTF, use “Text” instead. Save your resume as a plain text file, with a .txt extension.
Here is how some resume systems “see” RTF files:
{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\uc1 \deff0\deflang1033\deflangfe1033{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fcharset0\fprq2{\*\panose
02020603050405020304}Times New Roman;}{\f1\fswiss\fcharset0\fprq2{\*\panose
020b0604020202020204}Arial;}{\f2\fmodern\fcharset0\fprq1{\*\panose 02070309020205020404}Courier
New;}{\f3\froman\fcharset2\fprq2{\*\panose 05050102010706020507}Symbol;}{\f42\froman\fcharset238\fprq2 Times New Roman
CE;}{\f43\froman\fcharset204\fprq2 Times New Roman Cyr;}{\f45\froman\fcharset161\fprq2 Times New Roman
Greek;}{\f46\froman\fcharset162\fprq2 Times New Roman Tur;}{\f47\froman\fcharset186\fprq2 Times New Roman
Baltic;}{\f48\fswiss\fchars
If you simply MUST save your resume in Rich Text Format, save it with an “.RTF” extension.
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11. Save your resume as plain text, and see if it still “reads” correctly.
Resume systems do NOT read resumes directly. They first convert the resumes into plain text, and then they read and process that plain text. So, ALWAYS make sure that you save a copy of your resume as plain text and then open that plain text and make sure that it still reads like it should, with no funky formatting problems. You may be surprised…
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12. Save time and money.
Page numbers will probably show up as garbage in your resume. The computer does not need page numbers. Your resume does not need page numbers, either.
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13. Put skills into Work History descriptions.
Why? Because really good resume systems can actually match your skills to the job dates and compute your total years of experience for each skill and the date that you last used each skill, and that is extremely important information. Should you put your skills into a separate SKILLS section? Sure, if you want to. But even if you do, make sure that you also put those same skills into the individual job position history descriptions.
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14. Do not nest data.
If you held three different positions for ABC Company, treat each position as if were a separate, standalone position.
WRONG:
May 00 – Present
Ablest Technologies Inc., Maricopa County AZ
Dec 04 - Present
Systems Integrator / Senior Systems Administrator
Provided data integration services, blah, blah, blah.
Nov 03 – Dec 04
Programmer/Analyst
Wrote code, blah, blah, blah. I started with the company as a Junior Fall Guy. In Nov 03, I was promoted to Programmer/Analyst..
RIGHT:
Dec 04 - Present
Ablest Technologies Inc., Maricopa County AZ
Systems Integrator / Senior Systems Administrator
Provided data integration services, blah, blah, blah.
Nov 03 – Dec 04
Ablest Technologies Inc., Maricopa County AZ
Programmer/Analyst
Wrote code, blah, blah, blah.
May 00 – Nov 03
Ablest Technologies Inc., Maricopa County AZ
Junior Fall Guy
I was considered to be responsible for everything.
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15. Do not put any explanatory or descriptive text until AFTER you have set forth ALL the basic facts.
WRONG:
May 00 – Nov 03
Plaza Technology Solutions, LLC.
Plaza is a $500 million VC-funded venture that provides best of breed accounting and POS solutions directly to companies who sell snow cones. PTS received its second round of capital in March of this year.
Chief Technology Officer. As CTO of PTS, I was responsible for ensuring that no snow cone was left behind.
RIGHT:
May 00 – Nov 03
Chief Technology Officer, Plaza Technology Solutions, LLC.
As CTO of PTS, I was responsible for ensuring that no snow cone was left behind. Plaza is a $500 million VC-funded venture that provides best of breed accounting and POS solutions directly to companies who sell snow cones. PTS received its second round of capital in March of this year.
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