If you're submitting a paper resume to a company and you think the resume is going to be scanned into an electronic resume,

then you need to make sure the scanning process understands what you've written. Remember, the database is going to convert the resume into a simple ASCII format.

Make sure your name is the only thing that appears on the first line of the document. Remove any graphics or artwork on your resume including shading, vertical and horizontal lines. Bulleted items can confuse scanners, so convert them to simple hyphens or asterisks. Move all text to the left margin. Tabs, tables and centered text can sometimes confuse the scanning software.

Restrict your use of fonts to Times New Roman, Arial or Helvetica. Use only one font size, preferably between 10 and 14 points. Remove all underlining, bolding and italics. Use 8.5" x 11" paper that is white with black ink and print your resume only on one side of the paper. This will improve the contrast of your text and help the scanner to read your resume. If possible, do not fold or staple your resume. That means mailing the resume in 9"x 12" envelope.

If you're submitting your resume electronically via email or as an electronic document, you'll also want to follow the same electronic resume guidelines mentioned above. That is to say, you'll want to follow the rules such as keeping the fonts you're using simple and aligning the text to the left margin. In fact, you have an advantage when submitting your electronic resume by email: You can send two copies of your resume. One electronic copy can be the simple format that the human resources department can efficiently and accurately scan into the electronic resume database.

The second can be the elegantly designed resume format that uses bolding and italics to highlight the job titles and keywords you want to emphasize. And this brings us to our final point - the importance of keywords in electronic resumes.

Since electronic resumes will be stored in a database, the screening process involves a keyword matching routine. The hiring manger describes the skills and job titles that apply to the job opening and the human resources person queries the resume database for those same terms or keywords. Resumes are then screened and ranked based on the matching algorithm.

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