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Subject:Pretty resumes, take II From:geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA Date:Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:31:21 -0500
John Wilcox, responding to my suggestion that you choose
resume paper that is visually distinct without being
obnoxious, noted <<...many companies these days are
actually requiring standard paper -- copier stock -- no
colors or textures.>>
Ah, but I never said you should ignore the instructions
given in the application form. If the instructions aren't
provided, then they're not likely to get them followed, are
they? More to the point, this is going to vary from company
to company. By no means is every resume submitted to OCR,
particularly for smaller companies.
<<This is because they don't have an "HR geek" looking at
them at all. They just do the OCR thing and then scan for
keywords.>>
And as I noted in my original posting, use <<something...
that won't reduce legibility>> and <<[m]ake sure (photocopy
the resume to test this!) that the two colors are dark
enough that they'll still scan properly>>. Now granted, I
didn't put all these together in a single sentence that
said "beware the OCR!", but I think the message was still
pretty clear. More to the point, if your paper doesn't
interfere with legibility, modern OCR software should have
little trouble reading the text.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.
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