How to Format Online Resumes

With the growth of online job sites and online application processes, it is often necessary to post resumes online, send resumes via email, and upload resumes to potential employers. To make sure your resume remains correctly formatted and readable, it's important to understand how an online resume should be created. Since different formats are appropriate for different delivery methods, saving your resume in multiple formats is a good idea. Here are three useful and common formats.These instructions are specific to the PC; however, the process is similar for Mac users.

Things You'll Need

• PC hardware
• Windows operating system
• Microsoft Word or other word processing program

Instructions

Resume in Rich Text Format

1. One of the most versatile ways to save your resume is to save it in Rich Text Format (these files are identifiable by the extension ".rtf"). In Microsoft Word, look at the upper left hand corner of the screen and click on "File."

2. Under file, scroll down and click on "Save As." (In the newest version of Word, "Save As" can be found when you click on the Microsoft logo at the upper left of the screen.)

3. After you hit "Save As," scroll down and click on "Rich Text Format."

4. Now that your resume is saved as an RTF, you can attach your resume to emails or upload the document to a website. The advantage of an .rtf over other formats (such as Word files) is that it is not specific to a particular word processing program; therefore, it is more versatile and can be shared among users of Word, Wordperfect, and other popular word processing programs. (Files can be saved as RTF in other Word Processing programs as well; it is not unique to Word.)

Resume as a PDF

1. Another very common way to format resumes is as a PDF (Portable Document File), identified by the extension .pdf. This format basically saves the "image" of the resume; in other words, it will be saved and read in the same visual form that it was saved in and cannot be changed (at least, not without the software package Adobe Acrobat). If you cannot save your file directly as a PDF, you may need to purchase or download a file converter (http://news.office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?articleid=688&zoneid=8). For many word processing programs, Adobe offers these downloads free of charge. (http://www.adobe.com/)

2. Since many word processing programs allow you to save any file as a PDF, first click "Save As" and see if PDF is an option.

3. If you see PDF, click on it to save your file. Remember that in this file format your resume cannot be edited.

4. If saving your resume directly as a PDF file is not an option in your version of Word (or other Word Processing software), go to the Adobe website and download or purchase the converter package (in some cases conversion can be done online).

Resume as a Text Files

1. Some online job sites and career services ask that resume information be directly typed or pasted into a ready-made text box on their web site. For this reason, it is wise to have a version of your resume formatted as a "Text File" (which has the extension .txt.)

2. There are a couple of different ways to format your resume as a simple text file. First, many versions of Microsoft Word (and other Word Processing programs), allow you to scroll down from "Save As" and select either "Plain Text File," "ASCII," or simply "Text." All three of these options save the document as a text file with the .txt extension.

3. If you are not able to save it as one of these "text" file types, you will need to copy your resume directly from the document it was originally saved in.

4. Open your Windows program "Notepad" and paste the resume there (Notepad is found under Windows Accessories). Proofread your resume in Notepad very carefully and adjust any problems with formatting (such as lost italics, bold, underlines, special characters, etc.)

5. Once you have the the file the way you want it, hit "Save as" and scroll down to save it as a "Text Document."

Tips & Warnings

• Keep all the formatted versions of your resume in a central folder with each version clearly labeled.

References

• Office Watch
• Resume Resource

Resources

• Adobe