Most large companies now use screening software to filter applicant resumes. Getting your CV through the net sometimes has more to do with formatting than with the quality of your experience.
Business Insider recently published a list of tips to make your resume filter-friendly. Here are a few you probably never thought of:
1. Don’t put your contact info in the header or the footer. Some software is set up to omit the header and the footer, which means that your resume might wind up floating around the company with no contact details attached.
2. Use sans serif fonts. Serif fonts like Times Roman or Cambria and screening software don’t get along. Choose Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, or Calibri to get noticed.
3. No graphics, no logos.
4. No borders.
5. No lines that cross the whole page. Some software will reject resumes for having these.
So there you have it. Some of the rules seem pretty arbitrary, but since we can’t get a human to look at our resumes until the robots have signed off on them, we’ll have to play along.
Tell Us What You Think
We want to hear from you! What other tricks have you learned about resume formatting? Leave a comment or join the discussion on Twitter, using the hashtag #MakeItHappen.
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