Nonprofit Job Seeker recently published an article with some great information on how to get your resume seen by an actual person when you submit it online. According to the article, an increasing number of companies are using "applicant tracking systems" to vet resumes. The systems will automatically reject applications that are lacking certain key words, and the format of the resume also impacts how they're processed. Follow these steps to ensure you have the right formatting to get your resume through these systems:

1. Save your resume as a "text only" or "plain text" file.
2. Re-open your file. All graphics should have been removed, but if they haven't, delete them. Use equal signs instead of lines or borders, and replace bullet points with asterisks (*) or hyphens (-).
3. Limit your margins to no more than 65 characters wide.
4. Use an easy-to-scan font such as Courier, Arial or Helvetica.
5. Eliminate any bold, italics or underlining.
6. Introduce major sections in all caps rather than using special fonts.
7. Keep all text aligned to the left.
8. Use the space bar to indent text rather than using tab.

Read the full article here. For more information on the importance of keywords in your resume, read this article: Write Your Best Resume. 

And don't forget about our Resume Review Service! To have your resume reviewed by one of our professional career coaches, submit it here.