Plain Text Resume - After Converting Your Resume To Plain Text...

© David Alan Carter
All Rights Reserved

If you've been told to convert a copy of your formatted resume to Plain Text, you've been told right. The simple format also known as ASCII (which stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange) allows any document to be read by practically any computer in the world. A plain text resume is needed to post to online forms with job banks, and to send electronically via email in response to ads.

But there's one last hurtle to jump. Yes, your resume in its current plain text form will be easily read by computer software scanning for keywords. But should those bytes and bits succeed in getting through the initial screeners and end up on the monitor of an actual human being, you don't want your plain text resume to be overly hard to read. In the interest of human eyes, here is a checklist of 5 steps to go over before your plain text resume steps out onto the internet.

5 Steps to a Readable Plain Text Resume

1- Adjust The Header. Your resume's header - name and contact information - will likely be jumbled in the conversion to plain text, unless it was centered and devoid of design instructions to begin with. Fix the look by placing everything on the left margin. Allocate a single line for each of the following: Name, Address, Phone Number, Email Address, and Web Address URL (if applicable).

3 - Bring Back Lost Bullet Points. In theory, bullet points from your formatted resume should be transformed into asterisks during an ASCII conversion. In theory. Meaning, check those bullet points. If they vanished, or were turned into question marks, fix them by making them asterisks.

4 - Look For Other Anomalies. Scan for other characters that may have gone wacky in the process. Candidates for conversion wackiness include the em dash (similar to an extended hyphen), diacritical marks (i.e., the accent mark above a letter), and other characters created by your application software and not found on the keyboard. The fix for these anomalies is to find the closest approximation that resides on your keyboard. Tip: if it appears on your keyboard, it's ASCII supported.

5 - Improve Readability by Re-Formatting Category Headings. To make your plain text resume more pleasing to the eye, consider placing your category headings (i.e. Profile, Education, Experience, etc.) in ALL CAPS to help distinguish the various sections of the resume. Think about adding a series of marks either directly above or below the category headings, crafting either a full line or partial line. You might try a series of equal signs ====== or tildes/squigglies ~~~~~~ for the sake of appearance. Don't go crazy, and remember to limit any character additions to those found on the keyboard.

Plain Text Resume Conversion Completed - And Readable

You're almost ready to present your plain text resume to the world. As a last step, test your new and improved ASCII resume by emailing it to yourself and a friend or family member. Preferably someone with a different email client (e.g. Outlook, Hotmail, Thunderbird, etc.). Does it look OK? You're good to go.
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A Final Thought...

File format notwithstanding, if you've been in the job market for weeks or months and your resume isn't making the phone ring, it's time to reevaluate the document that is supposed to be selling you. Writing an effective resume has never been a walk in the park, but in this tough economy, resume writing is even more challenging. If your resume is going to be fighting for attention in an extremely competitive field, the services of a professional resume writer might make sense.

If you opt for some help, seek out a certified resume writer, and a writer who will guarantee the resume he creates will generate interviews. Yes, they're out there.

In fact, I can help you identify that "pro," that special writer who is qualified to deliver a polished document that puts your best foot forward in a tough job market. The page Resume Writing Services Reviews identifies 10 or more of the more popular companies out there, and I rank these writers on values like...

• Quality of workmanship
• Credentials
• Pricing
• Guarantees

You’ll find star rankings, mini-reviews, and in-depth reviews on each of these 10 companies. Whether you go it alone or trust the services of a pro writer, I wish you the best of luck in your job search! 

– David

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