New rules for the resume

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Nov, 1998 by James Ramage

Key words, not looks, catch a computer's attention.

Forget the old adage that a resume has only a few seconds to catch a reader's attention. In the new world of hiring, a computer--not a human being--will, more likely than not, do the first read.

A growing number of companies, including American Airlines, Citibank, Coca-Cola and Lockheed Martin use software packages to store, track and search the thousands of resumes they receive each year.

"We don't deal with paper anymore," says Keith Williams, vice-president of human resources at CUNA Mutual Group, in Madison, Wis. "If someone mails in a resume, we scan it into our database."

That's generally where the process starts--getting your resume into the computer. Of course, the want ad won't announce that your resume will be scanned, so your best bet is to call the human resources department and ask whether the company uses such a system. If so, the old rules are out the window because a resume that's attractive to human eyes may thwart efforts to scan the information into a computer file.

"The more vanilla your resume is, the easier it is for the system to read," says Clyde Gillard, vice-president of emerging markets and technologies at SkillSet, a developer of recruiting software.

According to Resumix, another software firm, you should:

* Choose a standard typeface and a font size between 10 and 14 points.

* Avoid underlining, italics, boldface, bullet points and rule lines.

* Laser print the resume on standard-size, white paper.

* List your name and phone number on separate lines, at the top of the resume

* Keep all the text in one column.

ROUND TWO. Producing a scannable resume is only the first hurdle. You also need to make sure that your resume stands out when a manager screens the database. In the same way that Web pages get picked when you search the Internet, resumes get chosen for how many key words the search engine finds. Because those words are often nouns--such as educational credentials, professional organizations and job titles--you should make sure nouns predominate, even over the traditional action verbs. (Hint: If you're applying for a specific, advertised job, the ad itself may contain some of the key words that will be searched.) Computers don't care whether your resume is one page or three, so you have a bit more leeway in terms of length.

"My resume includes a summary of key skills, in one or two words, that a person might search for," says Gillard. "It takes some of the marketing sizzle out of the resume, but a computer can read it with ease."

One advantage of the automated systems is that they allow applicants to get resumes into the pool for many jobs, not just the one for which they initially apply.

"In the past, if a resume came in to one of our 50 sales offices, it would likely sit in a file and no one else would be aware of it," says Williams. "Now, it goes into the database, and if it meets a hiring manager's criteria, it will be pulled up."