Many of us have suffered through some sort of résumé workshop where a well-meaning instructor shared the secrets of laser printing and heavy-stock paper. Those tips work well if you're sending out paper résumés, but most Web-development companies expect their job candidates to send ASCII résumés or URLs via email, and advice about five-pound bonded cream paper just doesn't port well.
For one thing, for each job you pursue, you're going to want to provide a fine-tuned version of your résumé, one that showcases how totally qualified you are for that specific position. Therefore, it's smart to perfect a résumé ahead of time for every possible job you may be applying for. If you're stuck on how to custom-tailor your résumé, at the very least create one résumé organized around your work experience and another organized around your different on-the-job skills.
Depending on how many different types of skills you have, you may want to have a few versions of a skills-grouped résumé: one that focuses on your fabulous multimedia production skills, another that highlights your Web-specific design and production work, and so on.
That said, here are some general tips -- the product of my hard-earned knowledge of what does and doesn't work in online résumé presentation -- that should apply to each version of the résumé you create.
Résumé DOs and DON'Ts
DO invest in a personal Web site. If you're working as a webslinger for a large, faceless corporation, you're probably not going to be able to host your job-hunting efforts on the company server. Spending US$20 per month on a personal site allows you to build a product that showcases your skills and convinces future employers that you know what you're doing.
DO test your résumé extensively and make sure it makes sense on a 2.0 version browser and can also be read with the images turned off. If you're really slick, make your resume.html file a conditional HTML file, where you can serve different versions of the résumé to different browsers.
DO include specific URLs of Web sites you've worked on, and list exactly what you did on the site. Nobody is going to be impressed with your work at "http://www.netscape.com" unless you tell them exactly what you did. If you're a steady writer for their developer section, be sure and say so and list URLs that point to the pages featuring your work.
DON'T go crazy with the URLs. The person reading your résumé will want to see URLs for the sites you've done, but not for the schools you attended or the software tools you used. The only exception to this rule is if you built the sites for the schools you attended or the software tools you used; even then, the URLs need to be listed under work experience.
If your specialty is interface design or information architecture, DO include a click-through portfolio to flaunt how savvy you are with design samples, site maps, or other explanatory material that showcases your in-depth knowledge and experience.
DO offer a printable version of your online résumé. If someone is looking to recruit you, he'll want a hard copy for interviews, and your five-framed, dHTML-driven résumé is going to be difficult to print. The last thing you want is to have your name associated with the frustrating experience of being unable to print.
DO make sure you warn users whether any links in the résumé will launch a new window or take them off the site. This is a user interface courtesy that, sadly, is not often practiced. Win points for being polite.
DO practice good résumé writing. Nobody is going to be impressed just because you're online. Observe the same rules of writing for all versions of your résumé.
DO have an ASCII version of your résumé handy for quick emailing. Remember that most email programs wrap any lines that exceed 72 characters, so make sure each line on your résumé is 72 characters or less. To help you eyeball the amount, here's an example of a 60-character line:
DON'T send your résumé as an attachment. People looking to fill a position can receive hundreds of inquiries, and they're not going to bother to take the extra time to open and print out your résumé. Put your résumé in the body of the email, after your cover letter.
To save time and prevent having to cut-and-paste your 72-characters-or-less-per-line résumé below every cover letter, save your résumé as a .sig file in your email program, then select the .sig when you're mailing out the cover letters. Eudora is an excellent program for this if you're not comfortable with pine or elm.
DON'T point potential employers to your Web-site journal where you talk about your explicitly photographed bondage sessions, illegal drug use, or extramarital affairs. There are documented instances of current employers getting hot and bothered over employee Web sites with less controversial fare. If you force a potential employer to assess whether it wants to have its name associated with the author of such a Web site, you'll probably find yourself on the short end of the stick. Try to get a feel for the company culture before sending URLs out, so you can either practice discretion or opt to pass on a job opportunity if you feel like the company and you won't see eye to eye on personal Web sites.
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