Scannable Curriculum Vitae Guide
Preparing scannable documents such as Curriculum Vitae or cover letter is easy. You can use your current Curriculum Vitae and include the Curriculum Vitae writing tips. However, once you understand what the employers searches for, you may decide to add a few keywords to increase your opportunities for matching job requirements or getting hits.
Recruiters and managers access the Curriculum Vitae database in many ways, searching for your Curriculum Vitae specifically or searching for applicants with specific experience. When searching for specific experience, they will search for keywords or phrases, usually nouns such as engineer, BA, marketing, Society of ..., Spanish (language fluency), Los Angeles, etc.
So, make sure you describe your experience with concrete words rather then vague descriptions. The computer system will extract the keywords from your sentences.
The most difficult Curriculum Vitae for the computer to read is a poor quality copy that has an unusual format such as a newsletter layout, adjusted spacing, large font sizes, graphics, lines, type that is too light or paper that is too dark.
Maximizing “Scannability”
- Place your name at the top of the page on its own line. Your name should also be the first text on pages two and others.
- Use standard address format below your name.
- In addition to your e-mail address, include your regular phone number (and fax number, which you should try to arrange to have)
- List each phone number on its own line.
- Left justify the entire document.
- Use black standard typeface such as Serif, SansSerif, Aria, Helvetica, Futura, Optima, Universe, Times, Palatino, New Century, Verdana, Geneva or Courier.
- Use a font size of 10 to 14 points. The best size would be 12 points because a human can easily read it too.
- Avoid fancy treatments such as bullet points, tables, tabs and hard returns.
- Italics, underline, especially if combined, shading, outline and reverses (white letters on black background) cause problems for the scanner.
- Avoid fonts where characters touch.
- Avoid vertical and horizontal lines. When used, leave at least a quarter of an inch of space around the line.
- Avoid two-column format or Curriculum Vitaes that look like newspapers or newsletters.
- Do not use images or graphics and boxes.
- Do not condense or expand the spacing between letters.
- Do not double space within sections.
- Use boldface and/or ALL CAPITAL LETTERS for emphasis and section headings as long as the letters do not touch each other.
- Replace bullets with asterisks (*).
- Use plus signs (+) at the beginning of lines or paragraphs.
- Use dashes (-) instead of horizontal lines.
Check the spelling and grammar of your Curriculum Vitae. Use the word processor's spell and grammar checker. If you are not confident of your ability to detect grammatical, punctuation and English or other language usage errors or if you need help in organizing your job application, Curriculum Vitae or cover letter send it to a professional for assistance.
To make your Curriculum Vitae preparation task easier you may take a look at CV keywords, Curriculum Vitae templates and Curriculum Vitae samples.
Remember that your Curriculum Vitae must be targeted.
If you have a difficulty with your Curriculum Vitae writing, instead of staring at a blank piece of paper, use:
- automated CV builder or
- human CV writing services or another CV writing service
We recommend that you email your Curriculum Vitae together with cover letter. If you have a difficulty with your cover letter writing use:
Other Scannable Curriculum Vitae Info
Now to finalize your Scannable Curriculum Vitae topic, if your cover letter and Curriculum Vitae are ready, you may email them through international job search engines to job recruiters and headhunters worldwide.
Start preparing for job interviews and check the job interview tips do's and don'ts. Also, find out why people are not hired for available jobs.
In addition, on job search, visas, work permits, cover letters, CV / resume, job interview and dress codes pages, you will find very useful tips for many different countries.
Good luck with your scannable Curriculum Vitae!