Tomorrow's Hispanic Leaders Today, Recognized by Hispanic Professionals as the premier hub for Hispanic Recruiting
Employer of the Month
iHispano.com's Partnerships
Top Rated Companies for Hispanic Advancement
iHispano Spotlight
Editor's Choice Award Winner
Featured Hispanic Jobs
Calendar of Events
More Events

The Cyber-Savvy Resume Primer for Non-Technical Professionals

By Murray A. Mann and Rose Mary Bombela-Tobias
Co-authors, Barron's The Complete Job Search Guide for Latinos
www.JobSearchGuideforLatinos.com

According to Pat Criscito, president and founder of ProType Ltd., almost all Fortune 1000 companies, nearly half of all mid-sized companies and most recruitment service providers for smaller employers now use information technology to access and process your resume. The cyber-savvy resume is an effective electronic version of your traditional resume that can help you maintain a competitive advantage in the employment marketplace. The cyber-savvy resume may take on of the following forms:

SCANNABLE

  • Your paper resume (or fax) arrives at a company or search firm, is scanned using Optical Character Recognition and stored in a computer database.
  • A keyword search is conducted to match candidates to the requirements of an opening. Keywords or phrases describe your skills, experience, education and cultural competencies.
  • Your resume can be difficult to scan if it contains funky fonts, compressed letters, underlining, hollow bullets, columns, short vertical lines, etc. You do not have to sacrifice design attributes.

E-MAILABLE

  • Your once visually appealing resume is converted to an "ugly" generic text file for posting on the Internet, Bulletin Boards and On-line Services.
  • Your resume is universally readable by any computer system, directly entered into a resume database, and can be distributed in seconds to one or thousands of websites.
  • Susan Britton Whitcomb, author of Resume Magic, suggests that anyone familiar with word processing software can easily convert their resume for successful e-mailing.

MULTIMEDIA

  • A resume for your home page on the Internet using photographs, graphics, animation, sound, color and/or movement.
  • This format can be an effective showcase for technical fields and the arts. Recruiters for most other careers do not surf the Net looking for personal websites.
  • You must know HTML, or have software that will convert word processing files.

BLACKBERRY

  • HTML/Plain text or just a minimized version of the original resume.

POSTING YOUR RESUME OR HOW NOT TO BECOME "LOST IN CYBERSPACE"

Your cyber-savvy resume can be submitted to a company e-mail address, a headhunter website, an Internet resume database or an on-line resume forwarding service. It is best to paste your resume into your e-mail message. This will protect the integrity of your information, save the receiver the hassle of downloading / opening and avoid the reader's fear of viruses. It is useful to have an e-mail return Address. You can obtain a free personal e-mal address from several Internet providers.

Your first on-line resume should be e-mailed to yourself so you may review the final version as seen by the recipient. A little research can help you determine how and where to post your cyber-savvy Resume. Most companies have websites listing employment opportunities and position specific e-mail addresses.

¡BUENA SUERTE!