8 Ways To Get Your Resume Seen

Some job seekers believe like they are sending their resume into a black hole when they submit them to an organization. More often than not your application will get to the recipient but there are times when that feeling about black holes is legitimate, all because of a new technology some employers use.

More organizations are making use of what are called an applicant tracking systems to filter out resumes that don't match what they want from applicants. These devices will automatically reject applications that don't contain certain keywords, but they will also affect resumes that aren't formatted properly. Below are eight steps to ensure your document is seen by human eyes:

• Save your resume as a "text only" or plain "plain text" file.
• Re-open your file. All graphics should have been removed but, if they haven't, delete them. Use equal signs instead of lines or borders, and replace bullet points with asterisks (*) or hyphens (-).
• Limit your margins to no more than 65 characters wide.
• Use an easy-to-scan font such as Courier, Arial, or Helvectica.
• Eliminate any bold, italics, or underlining.
• Introduce major sections in all caps rather than using special fonts.
• Keep all text aligned to the left.
• Use the space bar to indent text rather than using tab.