Many of the resumes I receive on a daily basis are a disaster – so bad that they are painful to read. Unfortunately, many come from job seekers that put a lot of work into making their resume look good.
How can this be? Simple, they format the resume in word processing program with advanced formatting features and upload it into a text editor. The text editor replaces all of the formatting.
Here’s an actual example (with dates, names, locations, titles and other identifying information changed):
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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Mo. Year-Present: Company1 Inc, City, ST Job Title
� Co-Owner in local retail establishment
� Coordinated financial details with building manager for the
location.
� Ordered and purchased supplies for startup and continuation of
business.
� Hired and supervised crew of 4 employees.
� Reconcile bank statements and make decisions on future purchases of
inventory.
Mo. Year � Mo. Year: Company2 Inc, City, ST Job Title
� Played an integral role in the 100% inventory of over $## mil of
property at Company Name.
� Maintained automated and manual accounting records on over $## mil
of property.
� Assisted in the transfer of original inventory from the original
record keeping system to the new record keeping system.
� Processed requests, documents and transfers at direct support level
through warehousing.
� Performed inventory and financial management procedures, including
ordering, receiving and storing supplies.
� Maintained the stock locator system and administered document
control procedures.
� Performed or supervised inventory management, storage and
preservation.
� Responsible for initial inventory and cataloging of two computer
rooms with over $# mil of equipment, and $## million of special
equipment.
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You can see how the bullets that were in this resume were changed to �. Although this example doesn’t show other problems, single quotes, double quotes and dashes may be replaced by other characters, often a question mark. This makes it very difficult to read.
This is how many of the resumes posted on the job boards look. This is also how many company systems handle a resume submitted online.
What You Can Do
If you are going to submit a resume into a text editor, Do Not Copy the text straight from MS Word or another word processing program. Save the file as a plain text file first, then copy it. You will see how the
Provide formatting queues in plain text. You can’t vary font size or use bolding to call attention to what is important, but you can provide some guides to the reader.
Separate key information with a blank line. This will make it much easier to see where sections start and stop. The use of All Caps is a good way to identify section headings, but be careful. Over use of this will make it much tough to read.
Use a simple character for bullets. A dash or asterisk is a good choice. This identifies for the reader where a new bullet starts and stops well, while not looking terrible.
Here’s a revised presentation of the same resume. It still isn’t pretty, but it is readable.
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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Job Title
Company1 Inc
Mo. Year to Present
City, ST
– Co-Owner in local retail establishment
– Coordinated financial details with building manager for the
location.
– Ordered and purchased supplies for startup and continuation of
business.
– Hired and supervised crew of 4 employees.
– Reconcile bank statements and make decisions on future purchases of
inventory.
Job Title
Company2 Inc
Mo. Year to Mo. Year
City, ST
– Played an integral role in the 100% inventory of over $## mil of
property at Company Name.
– Maintained automated and manual accounting records on over $## mil
of property.
– Assisted in the transfer of original inventory from the original
record keeping system to the new record keeping system.
– Processed requests, documents and transfers at direct support level
through warehousing.
– Performed inventory and financial management procedures, including
ordering, receiving and storing supplies.
– Maintained the stock locator system and administered document
control procedures.
– Performed or supervised inventory management, storage and
preservation.
– Responsible for initial inventory and cataloging of two computer
rooms with over $# mil of equipment, and $## million of special
equipment.
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Hiring managers and recruiters are used to seeing resumes that are mangled. By putting a little thought into how your resume is going to look in a plain text editor, you can vastly improve the readability.