Resume Parser CEOs’ advice for your resume…more great insights!

I mentioned last week my search for the best possible resume advice for you. [ladders-logo@2x.png]‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ Good Monday morning {NAME},  I mentioned [last week]( my search for the best possible resume advice for you.  I’d refreshed my knowledge by going straight to the CEOs, Presidents, and technical experts of the top resume parsing companies. These five companies power the software that interprets your resume for essentially all of the corporate sites you’ll encounter in applying for jobs globally.  After reading their insights, you’ll want to get [free resume templates]( and a [free resume review]( here on Ladders. You may also want to read my [in-depth detailed article]( on the best resume format for 2020, or have an [expert look at your resume](.  Our friends in the industry were very generous with their time, and the expert advice they shared on [what you need to know before your resume is parsed]( is below!  Should I use a template I found online?  Robert Ruff: "Don't use anybody's template.  If you take the built-into Microsoft Word resume template that's been there for 30 or 40 years, it is the least readable template out there. And the reason is, the left hand column is intended for you to put the date. And then to the right of that, in the table, you put the information about each job.  Problem is, visually, those dates align with the data that you put to the right, because you made it that way. But logically, all of the dates are stacked on top of each other in a column. When a parser looks at it, it will find just a whole list of dates first, then followed by all the other information."  (MC: Please note, Readers, that [our resume templates]( take into account, and avoid, these common template errors.)  Christine Watson: "Templates can be complicated with headers, footers, graphic elements and so forth. They are unnecessary. Resume parsers best work with straightforward text.  That said, and having a degree in design myself, I know how important resume design is to creatives. For creatives, I recommend having two resumes. One with your preferred design, to present as a portfolio piece or in an in-person interview and the other, a straightforward Word Doc to submit online."  Ninh Tran: "You can use a standard template. Don't use one of those super fancy ones that a lot of designers often use."  Mihai Rotaru: "Layout's actually quite important. It's also important for people. Layout - you actually use it so people, when they get a quick look at your resume, they can find something. And those type of signals, for example, indentation when you describe your work experience, that helps both the humans and also the parsers to realize, ‘Okay, this is a whole unit for me to understand.’  In general, indentation helps. Consistent font usage also helps in that perspective. Spacing is important.  Absolutely headers for the sections. Headers for sections are essential."  Robert Ruff: "It's important to segregate the data in your resume by using a header for it.  So, if you're going to have a summary, say ‘professional summary’ or ‘summary.’  If you're going to tell your work experience, say ‘work history’ or ‘employment history.’  Whatever comes to your mind first is probably right. If you sat there and thought about something unique, it's probably not worth using. I think my favorite header of all time that was not understandable was a user that had a section called ‘Community Infusion’. Which I thought was a coffee.  But what they were saying was, ‘These are volunteer organizations that I've worked with.’ Okay. Well, how about ‘Volunteering’ as a header?"  Can I use lots of different fancy fonts?  Mihai Rotaru: "Yes. It's no problem to use fonts as long as you're also consistent. As long as people can see it, then the parser usually can also see it."  Steve Kenda: "Yeah, fonts aren’t an issue."  Robert Ruff: "Yes. Unless it is a PDF, in which case it will mess it up.  So one of the things we see on PDFs is that people will put "Marc Cenedella," and they'll put the M an inch high, and the rest of the text will be normal size. That M, I can guarantee, will come out separated from the other letters."  Ninh Tran: "You should put standard fonts on your resume. Some fonts, especially if you are using paid fonts, they don't always get captured during the conversion."  Christine Watson: "Stay away from fancy fonts. It’s best to use system fonts that are compatible with any system used."  How should I handle contact information?  Steve Kenda: "You're best off if you can keep your contact information out of headers and footers by using a traditional tombstone layout."  Does keyword stuffing hurt my resume?  Steve Kenda: "I don't think so, unless they're not relevant, in my view. I think the more specific you are to the job you're applying, the better off you are."  Christine Watson: "Keywords are important and repeating them plays a factor in ranking, but use them wisely. A small part of how a parser ranks resumes is dependent upon the number of times a keyword is used. But the other part of the ranking process deals with the context around the keyword. Yes, a parser can read and understand context! The other part of the ranking deals with how recent the job title or skill is. The more recent, the more relevant."  Robert Ruff: "Not necessarily, but it's also not going to help. So, if you can honestly put keywords into your job and education histories, that helps.  The other thing that I've seen is, people trying to do tricks, like repeating the same skills 500 times, and then one-point white text on a white background. Those resumes will be deleted because they come up on every search, and the recruiters will be like, ‘Oh right. You know what? I'm not going to do this every time. I'm going to delete you out of our system.’"  How do parsers handle dates?  Steve Kenda: "So it's fairly straightforward... the date that you use for your history, your job experience, they all handle the dates in all different formats. The five primary vendors are all working internationally. And so they're used to different date configurations. They can pick up the phone numbers and the zip codes and the postal addresses from all over the world.  So those issues are not a problem."  Robert Ruff: "Let's say that I've been with IBM for 15 years, and I've had four different jobs there. It is preferred to say ‘2005 to present, IBM Corp’. And then say, right below that, ‘2015 to present, executive vice president.’ And then list the other jobs.  Because of the overriding ‘I was there for 15 years’ first piece of information, we will understand that all of those date ranges below it go with IBM. If you don't do that, then you need to put ‘IBM’ in every single job, so that we know, ‘Oh, that was another job at IBM.’  We call it nesting. So, if you're going to have jobs that are all at the same company, nest it under the overall range. Give us that first-to-last year date range and tell us the company."  Can I use headers and footers?  Christine Watson: "Avoid headers and footers. They are unnecessary elements when it comes to parsers and could hinder parsing of a resume."  Robert Ruff: "No. That is such an outmoded concept. It's terrible.  Back in the old days, if you printed out a paper resume and it was eight pages long, or any document, it was important to know what pages in what order. So you had headers and footers to tell you what the document was, and what the page number was. I can assure you that the machine knows the pages without you giving us headers and footers.  And the problem with the headers and footers there, that text will come out interleaved with all the other data, and it will look bad. Recruiters hate that."  Ninh Tran: "If you use the standard format, it's fine. With more customization, each customization widens the margin of error."  Steve Kenda: "In the conversion to text, whether it's the PDF or the Word doc, when you convert into the text, you're getting something that's getting repeated. If it's a true footer, it's breaking up the rest of your document with irrelevant info."  Can I just submit a screenshot of my resume?  Steve Kenda: "Stay away from that."  Christine Watson: "Never submit a screenshot of your resume. Same goes for an image PDF. Although some systems implement Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tools that can be integrated with a parser and could technically work, it is not as common and is not worth the risk of your resume not parsing."  How should I name my resume file?  Christine Watson: "The best way to name your resume would be with your name — first name and last name, maybe followed by ‘resume.’ Kind of an industry standard recommendation."  What is something that our typical professional at Ladders doesn't realize about resume parsing that might be important?  Christine Watson: "A parser doesn’t care how your resume looks, it is only looking at text, words and sentences. It can contextually understand what you’ve written and this is in part how you are ranked as a qualified candidate."  Steve Kenda: "Well, the dilemma really is people still view the resume as an opportunity to stand out, or distinguish themselves, or individualize. I mean, nobody wants to just be a fill-in-the-box, LinkedIn situation where, here's my profile and it looks like everybody else's profile. And people think of their resume as a way to stand out as a person, to keep the human element in technology. So they'll try to craft their resume in a unique way that personifies them.  And to that extent, okay, I get it. I understand the sentiment and everything. But from a parser’s perspective, you just want to keep it fairly simple and straightforward. That's the easiest way to make sure your information is accurately collected.  Robert Ruff: "Another thing that we see that's related to PDFs that's happening more and more, is people are using their LinkedIn profile as a resume. I agree that the content is there, but LinkedIn has, for several years now, been on a campaign to make their PDF profiles not accurately readable by parsing software. Which is their right to do, but it's a disservice to their users. And it’s a mistake for people to then use their PDF LinkedIn profile.  Because although we stay up on those changes, in general they aren't going to parse as well.  I think we saw at one point they had made 40-something changes in 100 days to make the resumes hard to parse out of those profiles. So that's a mistake.”  MC: And, why are they making so many changes?  Robert Ruff: "Well, what they're trying to do is there was this big lawsuit that did not go their way. And the lawsuit pretty conclusively established that the candidates own their data on LinkedIn.  I don't have a problem with LinkedIn trying to keep people from taking that data off of LinkedIn. I don't think it's unethical, but I think it's unfortunate. And I think the victims of it are their customers who don't understand that those PDFs are intended to be very inaccurate when they're parsed now."  Robert Ruff: "The other thing is, if you're going to have multiple versions of your resume, it's really hard to do when they all live on the internet. And people are like, ‘Well, I don't know. Who are you? Are you this guy, or that guy, because you keep telling me different stuff.’"  Overall, any final advice for professionals as they write their resumes?  Robert Ruff: "I will tell you that in every case, the cure for the bad resume is to tell less, more powerfully."  Christine Watson: "Keep things simple and clear. Write with honesty and use keywords like skills job titles wisely. List your most recent jobs at the top in descending order." ~~~  Thank you so much to our friends in the industry at [Hiretual]( [Textkernel]( [Sovren]( [DaXtra]( and [HireAbility]( for their terrific help in understanding more about how resumes are parsed with these phenomenal insights!  You can read their [complete advice]( for your resume at Ladders News.  Have a great week, Readers!   I’m rooting for you! [Marc] [Marc Cenedella]( Founder [( © 2020 [Ladders, Inc.]( All Rights Reserved [Advertise With UsÂ]( [ Contact Us]( |[ Unsubscribe]( You're receiving this email from our secure server at [Ladders, Inc.]( because you signed up on March 26, 2016 from [{EMAIL}](#) with the ZIP Code 06473. [Ladders, Inc.]( - [55 Water Street, 51st Floor - New York, NY 10041](#) [PrivacyÂ]( Terms of UseÂ]( View in Your Browser](