Emailing your resume - the secret no one tells you

Emailing your resume....the secret!

Emailing your resume... is a risky business!

Though it seems as though you are showing how cool, modern and computer savvy you are by emailing an application, it can make the opposite impression.

If you send your resume as an attachment many employers will not open it as it can contain a virus.

If you cut and paste a 'Word' document into the 'body' of the email - where you type the message, the formatting in the 'Word' document can be misread, and throw words left and right, break lines in odd places and altogether make a mess of all that careful work you did you set up your resume.

You have no way of knowing if your message will be read as plain text or rich text.

Here's how to convert your fancy formatted resume, still excellent for printed copies to hand over in person, or to mail, into a completey reliable email resume to put in the 'body' of your email message.

get's replaced with

In Word or Open Office turn on the show/hide invisible button. That's the symbol at the top of this section which looks like a backwards 'p'.
One by one replace every paragraph break symbol - that's the same symbol at the top of this section - with a line break using 'Shift' and 'Enter'.
You can't remove and replace the last paragraph symbol in the document, so just leave it.
Remove all bullets and replace with asterisks.
Remove all centering and set everything to the left margin.
Remove all tabs; if this means you have dates now crushed against a job
Plumber2005 -2007 for example, drop the date down one line and to the left.
Plumber
2005-2007

You should now have a version of your email which will still look thought about and have some formatting - bold, larger text etc - in rich text versions of email, but will not fall apart if read in plain text.

Test it by sending it back and forward to a few different email accounts and services. Read it in both plain text and rich text.

Download a copy of the email safe resume

A final email application tip.

In the 'Subject' line don't put 'Application for customer service position' or something. What do you think everyone else will put as the subject? Exactly the same.The employer will have received say 20 emails all with the same 'Subject'.

So make your name stand out from the first contact.

In the 'Subject' line put something line: 'Jane Smith - application for customer service position' and your application will be named and noticed.

Emailing your resume - the secret no one tells you