Published on Wednesday, Mar 04, 2009
In today’s information age, online resumes have become the new job search standard everywhere. A well-written e-resume - with the information stored in a database and available in multiple formats - is a vital and dynamic tool for jobseekers.
What’s more, with most of the employee hiring moving to the cyberspace and many companies actually requiring candidates to apply online for their open positions, an electronic resume is an absolute necessity for those seeking employment.
As writers Susan Whitcomb and Pat Kendall emphasise in their book,E-Resumes: Everything You Need to Know about Using Electronic Resumes to Tap into Today’s Job Market, “It’s nearly impossible to conduct a job search these days without some type of e-resume. In fact, it’s a safe assertion that the only job-seekers who won’t need an e-resume are those who want to work for an employer that doesnotown a computer!”
Yet, there is no need to panic for our not-so-net-savvy friends, as an online resumedoes not differ much from the traditional one. The major variation lies in the mode of delivery – over the Internet as opposed to the usual post or fax. Besides, not only is an e-resume easy to build and timesaving, it is also the most impressive way to share, manage, track and update your professional minutiae.
The online resume opens the door to a versatile set of options. You can use it in different ways like emailing to an employer (as an attachment or in the body of the email), submitting applications for job openings on company websites or uploading it as your own personal web page.
You can also post it on various job portals either in its entirety or piece-by-piece based on the profile forms. These job board databases are searched daily by thousands of employers, providing mind-boggling exposure to infinite employment opportunities.
Formats
The web provides new and more effective means of processing and working with resumes. The basic format is a text-based (ASCII) resume. It is developed in a text-editor with plain text sans any formatting, like the text in an email. This is the most-widely used format as it can easily be emailed or posted on job boards.
If you are using a word processor, like Microsoft Word, it is advisable to skip the formatting of varied fonts, indents or rule lines as it may end up quite disfigured when posted. Keep it content-driven without any appealing formatting or graphics. But you can still make it look fetching by using different headings, bullet points or emphasising with capital letters.
To cover every contingency, net-savvy users prefer to create various formats like Rich Text (RTF), Portable Document Format (PDF) and Web-based (HTML).The HTML web page version is visually pleasant and helps you to control the layouts, colours, margins, tables, links and several other items on the web page. But the fallout is that it can display quite differently based on the type of browser and other settings.
Even the PDF format offers embedded documents with improved formatting for viewing text images, more like a graphical picture. But again it requires specific software for viewing.
Yet, there is no universal resume format as many companies have a rigid setup and accept only specific file formats like Microsoft Word or HTML, rejecting other versions outright. If there is no specific mention, it is best to send a word document as an attachment. But make sure that you name the document with your own name to avoid any confusing mix-ups.
As such, an online resume does not have to be limited to the traditional one or two pages format and can also demonstrate skill development and growth over the course of your career. But be careful as companies and even job boards often limit the number of words and file size.
You can either develop your own resume with the help of the abundant resume layouts, styles, templates and other writing tips available on the web. Else, hire the services of resume writers to create a professional and efficient one.
By now it’s quite clear that an online resume is an utter must-have – the best way to toot your horn and realise your full potential. But while it’s true that employers prefer to receive electronic resumes and most paper-based ones are immediately consigned to the dustbin; you still cannot afford to completely do away with it. In fact, experts constantly exhort that candidates should always print out their resumeand carry hard copies to job fairs and interviews.
PAYAL CHANANIA
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