Sunday, August 2, 2009

Posting your resume online


When posting your resume online, be mindful of your formatting. Unless the website specifies that you can render your resume in html and you actually know how to do it, keep it as simple as possible. Use text format, remove bullets and extra lines. Remove formatting such as italics, bold and underline. You can substitute and asterisk (*) for a bullet point and dashes for lines.

Once you’re done. Publish it online and check how it displays. Do this before sending it out to potential employers. You may also want to take a look at other resume postings online to see how they styled theirs given the limits of online resume posting.

Next issue you need to think about is security. The internet is open to anyone. Job sites that allow you to post resumes may have some display criteria (public, private, employers only, etc) which helps increase your safety. However, for those that are not so clear about their privacy policies, don’t be so quick to post your personal information. Displaying your complete name, address and home phone opens you up to identity fraud.

You need to carefully evaluate the job sites where you will be posting your resume. Choose one or two large job sites that have big databases. You may also want to think about being industry-specific about your posting. This would limit the calls from employers that are not a match.

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