Résumés and Cover Letters in the Information Age

The days of walking into a company and handing someone your résumé are not over; however, it has become much more common for employers to require job applicants to submit their résumés (and cover letters) online. In fact, for many jobs, you need to complete a job application online, too.

Companies accept online résumés in different formats. They may ask you to:

• email your résumé in the body of an email.
• send a plain text or ASCII file attachment of your résumé.
• copy and paste a plain text (ASCII) file into an electronic application form on the company’s website.
• send your résumé as a MS Word document.

Never send a résumé as an attachment unless the employer has asked you to send it this way. If there are no instructions in the advertisement about how to send your resume, it is best to send your resume in the body of your email.

Due to the risk of computer viruses, it is less and less likely that an employer will accept a résumé as an attachment. Instead, ASCII or plain text documents have become the norm worldwide. An ASCII document can be transmitted and received by any email and operating system. In other words, what you send from one computer can easily be read by another.

How to Convert a Résumé to an ASCII (Plain Text) Document

Before you begin, do a thorough check of your spelling and grammar before you convert your document.

ASCII does not recognize special formatting such as bold, italics, underlining, or special fonts. You may need to rewrite or revise your text layout. Instead of bold or underlining, you can use CAPITAL letters. Bullets can be replaced with asterisks (*).

You cannot center text or use indents, so you should get rid of tabs and move all of your text to the left margin. Sections should be separated by blank lines.

Limit your lines to 80 characters per line.

When you are ready to change your résumé to plain text, click on “File” at the top of your screen. Then select “Save as.”  Find “Save as type” and select “Text only.”

Before you send your plain text menu to an employer, email it to yourself and to a friend who uses a different email system and a different operating system. This will allow you to check that the résumé looks the way you expected it to look.

A Note about Key Words

There is a trend in recruitment to use key words or Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to find candidates. Here’s how it works. Job seekers’ résumés are stored on a computer program. To choose a group of qualified candidates, a recruiter enters a key word into the ATS, and this key word is matched to words found in the stored résumés. The ATS acts as a screening device to filter out inappropriate résumés.

What does this mean for résumé writing? You need to write your résumé not only for human eyes, but also for “computer eyes.” Here are some suggestions:

• Use important key words and words that are common in your profession, including equipment used, for example: ICU or intensive care, pediatrics, clinical research.
• Use acronyms for certifications and licensing boards such as CCRN, TNCC, ACLS, QA.
• Keywords are usually nouns but may include skill and experience verbs.

How to Send a Cover Letter with an Electronic Résumé

If you will be sending your résumé as an attachment (but not your cover letter), write your cover letter as if it were a printed document. However, if you will be attaching your cover letter along with your résumé, write a brief email message, such as:

Dear Mr. Busby:

Attached please find my cover letter and résumé for the position of Physician Assistant at Alta Bates.

Sincerely,
Jose Serrano

Be professional. This is not an email to a friend! Be sure to check your spelling and grammar carefully and avoid Internet abbreviations such as U R for you are. If your email address is something like “single&looking”, you’ll definitely want to create another email account for your job search. You want your résumé to reach the hiring manager’s desk and not end up in the wastebasket.

Words that describe how to format a document

Words that describe what to do with a finished document

Other general computer words