How A Programmer Reads Your Resume

Did you know that when you send off your resume in paper, fax, or email form; that in many cases, it is scanned by a programmer for easier interpretation? If this is the first you have heard of this, or have often wondered why some companies ask for your resume in certain formats when you send it; listen up, because below we tell you exactly how a programmer reads and interprets your resume for the company hiring team.

First off, what does it mean when a programmer reads your resume. Most often, large companies or companies who may expect to get a lot of resume applications for a particular job opening will not have the time or technology to interpret every kind of format that every individual may come in. There could be thousands of resumes coming in, and the more uniform that the programmer hired to help can make the resumes, the easier it will be for the human resources staff to review and analyze the candidates for the position in mind. So, the job of the programmer is to use a scanning system that receives all forms of resume, and turns them into one format for easy review.

What does this mean for the applicant? Simply, that though most programmers or scanning machines hired to carry out the task of grouping the resumes do a pretty good job, that there are aspects of different formats that can cause snags in how the resume comes out once scanned. The result can be weird formats, line breaks, unrecognized fonts, and just complicated presentation. So, for the applicant, they need to know what these aspects of an unscannable resume are to ensure that they avoid them; and offer the best presentation step forward for a position they desire.

Keep It Simple: The first and most effective way to ensure that your resume is easily and successfully scanned is by keeping the presentation of your resume as simple as possible. Though you may be tempted to use unique fonts, shading, graphs, etc-it is far better that you choose something you know won’t interfere with the content of your resume. So, the most common unscannable aspects are: complicated fonts, colors, and graphics.

Size of Font: Second, make sure that the font that you use is not only, simple and professional, but also, of a standard size. Use at least, a 12 size font; but do not go overboard.

Be Careful with Tabs: One of the other problems with the scanning process is that tabs do not scan well. Though every resume will have some amount of tabs, try your best not to overdo or compensate for the fact that there is a problem with scanning tabs.

Be Aware of Keywords: Most often, a scanning program or programmer will be looking automatically for a group of certain keywords in your resume. If they do not find them, they could eliminate your candidacy from the running; so the best advice is to read through the job posting, and include the key skills and qualifications they are seeking in your resume for an easy and successful scan.