It doesn’t matter which company and position you dream of getting into. Before you plunge into the dreams of sky-high salaries and the atmosphere of the future office, you should at least go through screening for a background and a cover letter. This is the very first, but far from the most straightforward stage of selection. We can give tips that will increase your chances of passing it.
What format to choose and how to name your file?
When compiling a background, save it in one of the standard formats. They include:
- .doc;
- .pdf;
- .rtf.
Name it in the form of your last name and first name. If the size does not exceed the limits, such files will open on any computer. Then the question immediately arises with the file name – why? Usually, a personnel specialist places the resumes sent on the laptop under the name of the candidate, for easy work with a large number of such documents.
If the file is already named after an applicant, she/he will not have to do this. Unfortunately, very few applicants adhere to this simple rule, usually naming it a resume.doc or CV.rtf file. For a professional specialist, a candidate who respects her/his work can win sympathy, raising her/his chances of finding a job. As mentioned above, a spreadsheet isn’t the best form for a resume, so do not use MS Excel.
Remember that not everyone uses this program in their work. The presence of high-quality formatting is a prerequisite for the usual perception of the resume. Therefore, it’s better to forget about writing a resume in plain text .txt format.
File size limits of electronic CV
The optimal resume file size is up to 300 KB. If you send a bigger file, you force a personnel specialist to make extra efforts to read it. Avoid overloading text with photographs and the presence of very sophisticated design elements, and you can easily fit into the specified size.
Resume font selection
Using a variety of fonts in one resume is unacceptable, the text should remain readable. Use the font found on most computers, such as Arial or Times New Roman. Font size requires at least 10pt for normal reading.
Literacy of your background
The presence of grammatical and spelling errors allows us to judge the level of preparation of the candidate, his erudition, professional abilities, the ability to express one’s thoughts. Of course, for many jobs, 100% literacy is not required. The presence of errors is weakly associated with a business or personal qualities, except in cases where a mistake is made in professional terms.
Anyway, the presence of grammatical and spelling errors does not contribute to improving the quality of the CV in the eyes of a personnel specialist. Therefore, it’s highly recommended to ask friends to read your document before sending it. You can also contact a professional service for proofreading.
Structure of your document
The presence of a pronounced homogeneous structure in the text is significant. Remember that the representatives of the employer are people usually very busy and read the resume as if diagonally, extracting only the necessary information from the text. It’s highly discouraged to write related text, turning a resume into an essay. The resume for the employer remains a primary source of information about the candidate.
Everything else is superfluous. To create a pronounced structure, it’s better to use the principle of dividing the resume into thematic blocks, for example, education, work experience, additional information, etc.
Be careful when using text formatting elements such as bold, italics, and underlining. The abundance of such components will negate the ease of perception of information. To create the structure, you can use various dividing lines and frames, although the text, located strictly in the columns, looks no worse.
