Career Center Corner

The ASU Career Center is located in Boykin Wright Hall.

The ASU Career Center offers the following tips for the correct resume file format. These tips are excerpted from Brian Krueger, President of CollegeGrad.com and author of the best-selling book, College Grad Job Hunter.

For General Resume Referrals:
Microsoft Word – The industry standard for documents is Word. Not WordPerfect, not Acrobat, but Word. Why? The market penetration of Word into the business world drives this. So your baseline resume should be done in Word. Which version? There are some forward-compatibility problems with old versions of Word; however, save it in the current format of your copy of Word. And make sure you use Word to save the document, not some other program saving in Word format (since it does NOT always translate correctly, especially with bulleting and formatting). If you don't have a copy of Word, use it at the computer center, career center, library or on someone's machine with a registered copy. This Word document is your baseline resume document, which you should use for all updates and revisions. The next two types of resumes should be saved from this document.

When Applying Online… Pasting a resume or emailing when attachments are not accepted:
Text – After you have developed your resume in Word, do a "Save As…" in "Text Only with Line Breaks" format (or "Text Only" if that is the only text option available). The reason for saving it with the line breaks is that it will automatically put hard carriage returns in at no more than 80 characters per line. There are two advantages and a disadvantage in doing this. The advantages are that it will keep your resume from running off the right side of the screen when being viewed without word wrap and it will avoid any truncation of information (often after 1000 characters in a paragraph—-uncommon, but it does happen with some systems). The disadvantage is that some systems automatically word wrap at under 80 characters (72 is the most common), so the hard carriage returns can often leave one or two words on a single line. But the advantage (being able to read the entire resume) outweighs the disadvantage (formatting perfectly), since this resume will be used primarily for input into resume databases and applicant tracking systems (ATS). After you have done your "Save As…" you will still need to modify the resume in text format. Use a text editor (such as Notepad) to view the resume. Most notably, any indents will move text over 8 characters instead of the pre-defined indent you may have set for Word. Also proofread for any unusual characters or symbols, which may not have converted properly. Lastly, left-justify everything to the left side of the document. It doesn't have to be pretty, just readable.

Pasting on Your Own Personal Webpage:
HTML - if you want to take your resume one step further by posting it on the Web (NOT for resume database posting, but placing on a Web page of your own), you can do a "Save As…" with "Web Page" selected. Again, the formatting will not necessarily translate exactly from Word to the Web, so you may have to change some of the HTML to properly format (or at least end up with a close fit). This file format is optional and only needed if you plan to place it on the Web directly.

Which Do I Use for What Purpose?
So when and where do you use these three different versions? The Word version is used for printing, for sending as an attachment (unless text is requested specifically) and for uploading as an attached document on job sites such as www.CollegeGrad.com. The text version is typically used for Internet resume databases and for any input which would find it's way into a client ATS. And the HTML version is only used for posting to your own Web page.

ASU Alumni are invited to use the services of the ASU Career Center for no charge for up to one year after graduation. Alumni who have been out of school more than one year can register for free career consultation. For $60, alumni can purchase six months of access to job listings and resume reviews. The fee is $50 for members of the ASU Alumni Association.

Be sure to visit the Alumni Association web site at:
www.aug.edu/alumni

Join the Alumni Association online! Visit
www.aug.edu/alumni/alummembershipform.html

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