ASCII Format Your Resume

This Internet resume has been re-formatted into ASCII (pronounced ask-ee), which stands for American Standard Code of Information Interchange. It has become the Industry Standard for submitting resumes online.

Here are 2 practical reasons for preparing your resume in this  second version: 

Reason #1)  Optical Character Recognition Software (OCR)

The last thing you want after working so hard to compose a great resume is for it to be eliminated by software before it is ever seen by a human. OCR software, used by many large companies today, is designed to scan through hundreds of resumes in search of particular, pre-programmed keywords.  If it doesn't find those desired keywords, your resume may never be seen.

Reason #2)  Translation of Characters, Fonts and Punctuation

Anytime a document is shared between two computers, there is the potential for translation problems. Characters, fonts, & punctuation may look different by the receiving computer. Bullets may turn into questions marks; other Word formatting like Bold or Underline, may also be altered.

Doing your resume in ASCII eliminates that problem, and it can easily be copied/pasted it into the body of your email without distortions or changes.

Although the conversion may be a little less aesthetically pleasing to the Hiring Agent, it will at least be readable.

Notice the document snugs against the left margin.  Bullets are changed to simple asterisks (*), the Shift of the 8 button.