Alpha Omega - Scannable Résumés

"Few great men could pass personnel."
- Paul Goodman, American author and poet

Scannable Résumés:
DOES YOUR RÉSUMÉ PASS THE SCAN TEST?

More and more classified ads these days read, "please mail or fax scannable résumé to . . ." Why? Because companies are increasingly turning to technology to help with the task of receiving, cataloguing, sorting, and searching résumés. Sophisticated applicant-tracking software is becoming more and more affordable, providing employers with tools to quickly match candidates for positions, reduce the time-to-fill period from months to weeks, and cut the manpower requirements needed to recruit and screen qualified applicants.

At the heart of the recruiting component is a résumé database. Résumés can be added to the database in one of three ways. When a résumé is sent within the body of an e-mail message, it can be copied as a text file and pasted directly into the applicant-tracking system. When a résumé is sent by surface mail, a worker will scan the résumé using OCR (optical character recognition) technology. When sent by fax, the résumé may be scanned or manipulated directly into the applicant-tracking system.

Both scanned and faxed résumés are received as images. An OCR "reads" the résumé and translates it into an ASCII (pronounced ask-ee) file. ASCII stands for American Standard Code of Information Interchange. Once scanned and added to the résumé database, human resource professionals can search for candidates using 10-20 keyword criteria. Résumés that include the specified keywords will come up as a match, or "hit." The more hits, the higher the ranking your résumé will receive.

To improve the number of "hits," follow these basic do's and don'ts.

Do's:

	Use a clean typeface that ensures letters do not touch one another. Sans serif fonts such as Arial, Helvetica, Univers, and Lucida are good choices, as are the serif fonts Times and Courier. Use a minimum of 10-point for a sans serif font and 11-point for a serif font such as Times Roman.
	Use crisp white (or very light-colored) paper, 8.5 x 11.
	Send an original.
	Use a laser printer.
	List your name on the top line and use separate lines for address, each phone number, fax, and e-mail; if your résumé goes to two pages, put your name and telephone (on separate lines) at the top of the 2nd page as well.
	Keep text left-justified with a ragged right margin.
	Use hard carriage returns (the Enter key on your keyboard) only at the end of a paragraph.
	Be detailed about your job experience (but concise); avoid abstract nouns and focus on tangible, concrete nouns (in other words, don't say "computer programming skills" when you could say "UNIX, Windows, Powerbuilder, Oracle").
	Use common headings such as Objective, Summary, Summary of Qualifications, Accomplishments, Experience, Strengths, Education, Professional Affiliations, Publications, Certifications, Honors, Personal, Miscellaneous, etc.
	Clearly indicate your job target (for systems that may be dependent on an operator to input your skills classification). If you are interested in a variety of positions, list the possibilities and separate them with slashes (add an extra space before and after the slash to be sure no characters touch), for instance "Administrative Manager / Administrator / Business Administrator / Business Manager." Some companies have less definitive titles, such as Administrative Support Partners. Look through a company Web site or try calling the Human Resources Department for a list of titles. In most cases (if you can get past a voice mail system), a worker will be happy to assist.

Don'ts:

	No fancy paper or the popular recycled papers (a spec in the paper can turn an "O" into an "8" or an "i" into an "l"). Scanning technology has improved over the years and actually picks up recycled paper flecks and tries to interpret them as possible letters.
	No graphics, industry icons, borders, columns, or landscape (paper turned sideways) presentation.
	Avoid fancy bullets (most scanners can read a solid bullet, square, and asterisk).
	Don't condense spacing between letters.
	Don't hyphenate words at the end of a line in the body of the résumé.
	Don't use a hard carriage return at the end of a line (unless it's the end of a paragraph).
	Don't print on both sides of the paper.
	Don't staple multiple pages or a cover letter together.

The "keep-it-to-one-page" rule no longer applies. Use this general rule of thumb for length: New graduates should keep the résumé to one page; professionals with 10 years' experience can be one to two pages; and senior executives may run longer.

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