Find Employment/Applying Online
Applying Online
[edit | edit source]Many companies offer online or email-based application methods. This can be a tempting idea, but there are a number of factors to consider. First off, many online applications don't allow for uploading your resume or coverletters directly, but instead ask that you copy+paste the text into an available plain-text edit box. This can be very frustrating, considering that you have (or should have) spent a lot of time and effort formatting your resume and cover letters to look stylish and eye-catching. Note that when you copy+paste a heavily formatted document into a plain-text edit box, you lose more than just the fancy look: your text can be out of order, you can be missing important line-breaks, and you may also wind up with annoying control characters or blank characters in your edit box.
Plain-Text Resume
[edit | edit source]If you are applying to many places that accept resumes in this way, it may be a good idea to take the time to prepare a second, plain-text resume before hand. You can create one in notepad or a similar editor, and you can ensure that everything looks as nice as is possible in such a simple format.
Also, be sure to look for options where you can email a resume instead of uploading a plain-text one. If you are going to be emailing a large number of resumes, it might be worthwhile to invest the time (and money) to convert your resume to PDF format, to look more professional. Certain word processing programs such as OpenOffice.org can easily (and freely) produce PDF documents, and can also be used to convert pre-existing documents to PDF.