It is very important to provide the short, clear and concise electronic C.V.! Some of the scanning systems and the databases stop reading the C.V.s after certain number of lines, often after about one and half a pages, so be sure that the most important information do appears early in the C.V.

You can easily take the existing C.V. and reformat for the electronic submission. Here are some of the quick guidelines to do so:

Step 1:
Open the standard C.V. file on the computer and select a Save As command on the toolbar, usually located under a file menu. Select the Text Only, Plain Text or the ASCII as the type.

Step 2:
Close a file and then reopen it to make sure you are working from a new text-only version. You will see that most of the graphic elements such as the lines, images and the bullet point symbols now have been eliminated. But if they have not, go ahead and delete all of them. You may use the equal signs in place of the lines or the borders and replace the bullet points with a plus symbols(+), asterisks (*) or an hyphens (-).

Step 3:
Limit the margins to no more than a 65 characters wide.

Step 4:
Use the easy-to-scan sans-serif type of font, such as the Courier, Arial or an Helvetica.

Step 5:
Eliminate the bold, italics and the underlining if any do remain after saving as the text-only.

Step 6:
Introduce the major sections with all the words in capital letters, rather than in the bold, italics or the underlining.

Step 7:
Keep all the text aligned to left.

Step 8:
Instead of using the bullets, use the standard keyboard character, such as the asterisk.

Step 9:
Instead of using a Tab key or the paragraph indents, use space key to indent.

Step 10:
When all this is done, click on Save or OK. Then reopen a file to see how does it look. Make any of the additional format changes if needed.

Now test the electronic C.V. by e-mailing it to friend who uses some different Internet Service Provider. For example, if you make use of BT, send it to someone who uses an NTL or the Hotmail. Also try sending it to someone who works in the large company to see how does it transmits through their I.T. system as the body of an e-mail rather than sending it as attachment. This way, they will be able to tell you how does it looks when it shows in their e-mail system and whether or not it is legible. After getting the feedback, make any adjustments that is necessary to fix it up.