by Emily Skarzenski, Technical Communications Consultant
Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group/ICS
(Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania)
Originally published in News & Views May, 1996 issue.
Copyright 1996 STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter. For permission to reprint
this article, contact the Managing Editor.
|
You've spent hours crafting an eloquent, elegantly designed resume--on paper. But do you have an electronic resume? With more and more job hunting happening via the Internet, you really should have an ASCII version of your credentials. If you've got a Web page, you can have a hypertext version, too.
Tips for ASCII resumes
An ASCII resume contains only ASCII text. That means all the special formatting you used in your printed resume will vanish--gone are the boldface, italics, and second font. Here are some guidelines for converting your glamorous document to acerbic ASCII. (To see a sample ASCII resume, click here.)
- Flawless ASCII text is essential. Your first step is to make sure your resume is formatted in standard ASCII text with line breaks. Stick to the standard ASCII character set; avoid the extended characters (see box below). Most word processors offer a "Save As" option that allows you to save your resume as text-only. Be sure to double-check the text after converting it, however: Microsoft Word, for example, doesn't translate some special characters such as curly quotes or em dashes into their standard ASCII counterparts. The best way to check is to open your text-only file in a text editor (such as Notepad or WordPad) and review it carefully.
Standard ASCII Characters
 Letters A through Z, both upper and lowercase
Numbers 0 through 9
These punctuation marks: ! " # $ & ' ( ) * + , - . / : ; < = > ? ` @ [ \ ] ^ _ ~ |
- Watch the margins. To make sure lines break correctly regardless of the recipient's platform or viewer, keep the line length of your text to 65 characters or less. This equates roughly to a document with 1-inch left and right margins created with a 12-point monospaced font (such as Courier).
- Kiss the double columns goodbye. Many people format their print resumes in two columns: a narrow column on the left for headings, and a wide column on the right for running text. Although it's possible to duplicate this effect in ASCII, it doesn't work well. It's hard to wring two good-looking columns out of a line that's just 65 characters long. Instead, place headings above text, and indent the following text slightly.
- Use spaces, not tabs. In aligning text horizontally, don't use tabs. Tabs are interpreted differently in different environments, but spaces are always a safe bet.
- Use white space and caps for visual impact. Since all-capitals must be used very sparingly, white space is your best friend when it comes to formatting an ASCII resume. Save all-caps for your name and the first-level headings. Use white space strategically, both horizontally and vertically, to separate sections and show relationships between headings and following text.
- Two pages is okay. In the print world, it's important to have at least a version of your resume that fits on one page. Because you can fit so much less on an ASCII page, it's fine to overflow. Don't go beyond two pages, though, unless you've been asked for a detailed resume.
- Make sure it gets there in one piece. There are two ways to send an an ASCII resume via e-mail: inside the mail message or as a file attached to the message. Not all online services (or company e-mail systems) allow recipients to receive e-mail attachments, however. Other systems encode attachments, which some readers may not know how to decode. Therefore, check with the person you're writing to before you send your resume as an attached file. If neither one of you knows whether the recipient can receive an attached file, use the other method.
- Don't worry, it's not supposed to look beautiful. There's only so much you can do with ASCII. A winning resume doesn't need to be visually stimulating, but it does need to be clean and easy to read.
Tips for HTML resumes
In designing your resume for the World-Wide Web, you'll need to consider all the things you usually take into account when designing Web sites, especially in terms of modem speed and browser capability. Most of the business users that comprise your audience are using 14.4 kbps modems, so make sure your resume loads quickly at that speed.
- Frames and tables--or not? If one of the prominent skills on your resume is Web site design, you may want to use frames or tables in your resume. But because many Web-surfers are using browsers that don't support these features, consider creating an alternate version of your resume that doesn't include them. If you don't want to do the work of maintaining two files, stick with the lowest common denominator.
- Flawless ASCII text is essential. (Does this sound familiar?) HTML is made of ASCII. So, as with ASCII resumes, make sure your text is standard ASCII. HTML has its own method for inserting special characters if you need them.
- Include a hyperlink to your e-mail address. This allows a person reading your online resume to send you e-mail simply by clicking on your link. Place e-mail links at the top and bottom of your resume.
- Use hyperlinks for each section of your resume. Below your name and contact information, place a series of buttons or text links to each of the major sections of your resume. This allows readers to move quickly to the sections that interests them most. If you don't have the talent or resources to create attractive graphical buttons that will download quickly, stick with text links. You want your resume to load quickly and cleanly.
- Make sure your resume gets picked up by search engines. To ensure that your resume is cataloged properly by search engines, put keywords in key places. Generally, the Internet search engines index Web pages in one of two ways: by URL and document title or by full text. Place the word resume, your name, and one or two keywords in your document title. To be picked up by the URL/title engines, include the word resume in your URL (as a directory or filename). For the full-text search engines, you can load the odds in your favor by placing alternate keywords in your resume as hidden text. This allows you to write your resume in terms that are familiar to you (and other technical writers) but include terms that searchers outside your area of expertise might use to find you.
|
