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Health & Fitness

Is your resume going into the "Black Hole?

Resume formatting advice to get through the on-line application - AKA The Black Hole!

Very often, I hear clients say "I don't think anyone is reading my resume....I send it in and it just goes into the "Black Hole"!

Well, that might be true in some cases unfortunately.  Some reasons why your resume may not be tagged for screening:

Format - take a good look at your formatting:

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Are there a lot of lines, bold, italics, odd bullet points like arrows? Minimize use of lines, blocks, arrows, checks, bold or italic lettering and use simple dots for bullet points.  

 Is your resume typed into a template?  Some template formats are unreadable by the software used by the application.  Instead of using a Word format, start with a fresh blank Word document and type the resume using basic format rules including at least a 1" margin all around.

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Are you using a universal font like Times New Roman or Arial? If you aren't uing a universal font there is a good chance your resume is unreadable -- the reader sees gibberish instead. 

Is the Word version 2007 or higher? It is known that Word 2007 has compatibility issues with on-line application software.  To be safe, SAVE your resume and cover letter documents as Word 2003 document, which is universally compatible.

Incredibly, any of these formatting issues could result in your resume being overlooked in the on-line application process.  Consider revising the format of your resume with these suggestions in mind and see if that improves your "visibility".

 

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