Create a Scannable version of your Keyword Resume
A scannable resume is a paper resume that is likely to be scanned by the employer into an automated applicant tracking system (a resume database). It needs to be modified slightly to help the scanner read the resume accurately.
This section explains how to modify your paper resume so it can be scanned accurately, however, once entered into the automated applicant tracking system, your success in initial selection and ranking will be determined by how effectively you have used keywords in your resume; therefore, be sure you start with a Keyword Resume.
Follow these steps to create a Scannable Resume:
- Remove all graphics; they confuse scanners. This includes art, shading, and to be safe, horizontal and vertical lines/rules. Bullets confuse some systems, so to be safe, replace bullets with asterisks.
- Be sure your name is on the first line of the resume and no other text is on that line.
- Tabs and centered text work on many systems, but to be safe, move all text to the left margin, remove tabs and use the space bar to indent.
- Use common and easily recognizable fonts. Ideally use a sans-serif font (without the little "feet" on characters) such as Arial or Helvetica, or a common serif font such as Times or Times New Roman.
- Keep all point sizes between 10 and 14 points.
- Use standard line spacing. Do not compress lines of text.
- Remove all italic, script and underlining. While bold is O.K. for newer and high end systems, to play it safe, use all caps as an alternative to bold.
- Keep "To" and "From" dates on one line. Use only a single date on college degrees.
- Remove parentheses around area codes in telephone numbers and replace them with a hyphen to be safe: 303-456-3945 versus (303) 456-3945.
Now you should have a scannable keyword version of your keyword resume suitable for submission in paper form by postal mail or FAX. To review an example, see Scannable Keyword Resume Example.
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