Uploading your CV or resume

The online versions are often harder to read. Really.

This week I’ve read, scanned and skimmed 276 uploaded resumes. Yes, I’m in currently involved in the joyless and thankless task that is recruitment.

It’s a tiresome thing to have to upload your CV to an impersonal website. With the advent of outsourcing came the growth of crappy recruitment agencies and the disappearance of the humane from Human Resources.

Instead of a quick chat over the phone to clarify job location or verify desirable criteria, today applicants are faced with faceless websites that even the best marketing and copywriters can’t change then from what they really are: a people shredder.

Incomprehensible formatting = declined application

I’ve just spent the better part of two full day’s of work churning through candidates’ resumes. Two days after which I have incredibly bleary eyes and no longer any desire to drink just one more cup of instant coffee.

Very few of the applicants are going to the next stage of the recruitment process, primarily since they did not meet the essential criteria. However, after ploughing my way though countless screens of data, I think it’s worth making a couple a suggestion to those of you out there who do upload your CV from time to time.

Most importantly, keep two versions of your CV.

Strip down and go naked

The first can be that MS Word version with fabulous, colourful and inventive formatting. I enjoy perusing a considered CV that contains information in a consistent manner and that present a logical flow. Even better, it’s pleasant to come across a CV that has a personal touch; a dash of colour or a non-standard title font. This is the version you email as an attachment or present in person to that sour-faced recruitment agent who’s only after you for the commission he’ll make.

The other version should be naked. A stripped down, de-formatted, bare-bottomed resume that contains no quirks at all. The best way to create this is to copy your fancy word-processed number and paste it into Notepad. Hey presto, just watch the three hours of font selection and border choice disappear as the bones of your life are laid bare in black and white Courier font.

This stripped-bare edition should be what you upload. If you can make sense of the Notepad version, you can bet I’ll be able to work my way through it easily as well.

As I became progressively tired during the course of my second evening reviewing the resumes, it struck me that I was declining applicants without remembering any information about them. Why? Because at 1am I could no longer be bothered translating enigmatic computer code to decipher what had originally been expressed.

Sad, but true. At least 50-odd applicants didn’t make it because their unreadable tables, weird font choices, underlining, strikethroughs and a myriad of other formatting selections didn’t translate well during uploading. I refused to struggle any longer and just simply declined the applicant.

For those of you who upload your CV regularly, it’s certainly worth considering half an hour’s extra toil to save a neat, clean and boring Times Roman file. At least it promises to get you closer to the second step of the recruitment process.