Resumes need to go low-tech

When I do mock interviews for seniors, I have the opportunity to view their resumes online through the vendor/company access to the Career Development Center at the university. This is the same system prospective employers use while looking for candidates, or in advance of a campus job fair. Just like the candidates, the resumes come in all shapes and sizes; no two are alike.

Recently I have been asked to review resumes from those who are already established in employment, or in some cases those who have lost their job. Much like the student candidates, these resumes take on a wide range of form and layout. You can easily identify, in both cases, where word processing templates were used to easily capture qualifications and experience. That’s not a bad thing; but it does tend to lead to font/format ‘bloat’ in appearance and lost white space for compressing the length of the resume. Tip: I encourage folks to get it down to one page, or two at the most.

Having offered coaching based on good practices from the employer side is one thing; actually performing the process from the candidate’s perspective is another challenge altogether. This past week, I seized the opportunity to experience the resume submission process firsthand. I asked a candidate who sought my help with their resume and job search if we could go through the process together. Here are some of the things that came forward:

• Many employers now provision a means (over the Web) to build a candidate “profile”. Here you enter a wide range of qualifications, background, employment, etc. in a pre-determined format. Tip: User ID and password data-entry formats will vary. Keep a personal log/record of the entries for each, and the date you began your profile.
• Not all employer profile systems are alike. Although I found the same underlying technology vendor in some instances, many were unique in appearance and operation. Tip: Be prepared for the surprises each will send your way.
• Some were sophisticated enough in their profile system to ‘read in’ a document (e.g., MS-Word resume) and then construct the profile in their system. In some ways it reminded me of the business card scanners that put business card information into your contact manager software. Tip: Check the results. You can go back and edit the results as well as add additional detail.
• Nearly all of the submissions for online profiles afforded the opportunity to submit a “cover letter” with the resume. However, most of the candidate resumes I have seen in the past failed to have one prepared in advance. Tip: Craft a cover letter that will introduce you in most prospective employment situations.
• Some of the profile systems allowed ‘text, only’ submissions, i.e., you needed to cut & paste your document(s), or enter the information manually in the space provided. Tip: Have your documents open in a separate window to speed the process.
• In one of the profile systems, when you applied for a specific open position, you were taken to an “assessment” page. This was a series of questions for you to answer that would capture your suitability to the position sought. Tip: Be prepared to answer questions as to why you are qualified for this position; this is an online interview of sorts.
• With all the sophistication in many of the employer sites, the number of employers that were email address submissions, only, surprised me. You were given an email address to submit your resume and cover letter as a general email. Some were more specific by giving instruction to include a job code, or specific wording in the subject line of your email. Tip: Read the instructions for submission carefully and follow them completely.

For some time I have been coaching people to save a ‘text’ version of their resumes and cover letters, i.e., go low-tech without formatting and all the fancy layouts. What they found in the experience was their breath-taking resume now looked liked gibberish. With the formatting gone, most of the layout no longer made sense.

From the experience outlined above, having built the low-tech solution (plain text version) with this candidate beforehand, we were prepared for any and all variances to the resume submission process. And, we took it one step further. Before we began the employment opportunities search, we created a number of versions/formats of the resume and cover letter. We saved a text version, one in MS-Word, and one as a .PDF file. This saved us time, and allowed us to respond to any prerequisite for resume submission.

When it comes to resumes and cover letters, it pays to go low-tech.