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If you would like personalized assistance, please contact the CDC for an individual appointment, or stop by during drop-in hours Monday through Friday between 2 P.M. and 4 P.M.
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Resumes: Electronic Resumes For employers who use electronic technology (e.g., internet) to identify job applicants, it is important to understand how to best prepare yourself for the use of this technology. Electronic systems scan the information on an applicant’s paper resume into a database. The employer then initiates a keyword search of the database to identify candidates to fill a position. This means that a resume must contain a sufficient number of keywords to produce a hit by the employer. Keywords tend to be nouns or noun phrases (Cobol programmer, social worker, account executive, and manager) rather than the action verbs generally recommended in most resume-writing guides. The keywords that employers utilize in their search are usually skill-focused nouns that are specific to the job opening and the industry. They can include:
Remember the limitations of the computer screen. The computer does not present a full page of printed material. The first 20 lines or so are presented and the employer makes a judgment based on that first screen. To be effective an electronic resume must be attractive, brief and clear. There are many things that you can do with a paper resume to improve its attractiveness (colored paper, colored ink, and fancy fonts), but this does not work for the electronic resume. If the resume fills the screen with print, with little of the screen showing through, the employer may feel that reading it would be too time consuming. Good spacing and margins, therefore, are important to appearance. A resume that fills several screens is acceptable, but there are several points to keep in mind. Limiting the presented job experience to the most important or relevant for the job you are applying should prioritize your experience. Put the experience in rank order from most important to least. Use phrases because full sentences take too much space. Concentrate on the last ten years of work experience. There is no need to list references on the resume because these use valuable space. If what you are saying cannot be understood the employer will simply go to the next resume on the screen; therefore, the language that you use is critical in the electronic resume. Proper grammar and spelling are very important. Some industry-standard jargon (TQM, QA, and Hazmat) may be acceptable but be careful using terms that the employer may not understand. Once you have completed a draft of your resume, have several people read it for clarity, grammar, and spelling. Consider incorporating their feedback into the resume. Your resume should be prepared in simple text form. This means it should not contain pictures, horizontal or vertical lines, special fonts, or other special tools available to you through many word processing programs.
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