The process for posting your résumé depends on the file format of your résumé

1. Prepare Word Document or Text-Based Document then copy to clipboard.



2. Paste into your profile on the CollectiveNet Website.

Microsoft Word Documents:

Your posted resume should come from a text-based file (.txt).  If you do not already have such a file, you will need to convert the Word version of your résumé into a text-based file.  In the conversion process Word will discard all non-text aspects of your file.  This means that essentially all formatting will be removed from your file.  For a discussion of how different formatting issues are handled in conversion see Format Conversion.

1. Open the .doc file containing your résumé in Word.
2. Peform a Save As.  Where it says Save as type, look in the pull-down menu for Plain Text. Do not use the rich text format (.rtf).  In the subsequent dialog box:
• Use the Windows default.
• Do NOT check Insert line breaks.
• Do NOT check Allow character substitution.
3. The result will be a document with a name similar to the Word document, but instead of a .doc extension, it will have a .txt extension. 
4. Continue with the instructions for a Text-Based Document.

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Text-Based Documents:

To get the best results from your text-based résumé, here are some tips and tricks.

1. Open the .txt file in Notepad. Do NOT use WordPad.
2. In Notepad, immediately turn off word wrap.
   To do this, in the Format pull-down, make sure that Word Wrap does NOT have a check mark next to it.  If you leave word wrapping on when you save the file, Notepad assumes that the current width of Notepad should be used for the line length. It will automatically insert its own carriage returns. This can make for some really ugly formatting when you re-open the document and desire some other line length.
3. If individual paragraphs are spread across multiple lines,
• Start at the bottom of last paragraph in the document.
• Remove the last character of the second-to-last-line of the paragraph. Repeat until the last paragraph is on a single line.
• Repeat this procedure from each paragraph from the bottom of the document to the top until each paragraph is on its own line, even if that line is very long and requires horizontal scrolling.
If you start at the bottom and go to the top, you can efficiently use repeatedly the keystroke sequence: up arrow, End, Delete.

4. Add or delete vertical whitespace (e.g., "Enter" or "Return" key) as needed. Hints:
• You'll want extra carriage returns between major sections, like Objectives, Education, Experience, Skills.
• You'll want extra carriage returns between employers.
• You may not want extra carriage returns between items in your bulleted lists.
5. Press Ctrl-S to save the .txt file.
6. Press Ctrl-A to select the entire contents of Notepad.
7. Press Ctrl-C to copy what is selected into the clipboard.
8. Continue with the instructions for CollectiveNet Website.

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CollectiveNet Website:

In your browser session that is pointing towards your CollectiveNet profile,

1. Press the Edit Profile button.
2. Click inside the "résumé" field.
3. If anything is currently in the "résumé" field, click at the start and drag the mouse to select all of the contents then press Delete key.
4. Press Ctrl-V to paste the contents of the clipboard into your profile.
5. Press the Submit button so that your profile, including your résumé, will be updated.
6. Click the View Resume link (from the Member Profile window) to open your resume in a browser window.
7. Use the browser Print Preview feature to see how your resume will print. Review for formatting issues. (Print Preview is available under the File menus of both Internet Explorer and Netscape).
8. Note that your browser Page Setup allows you to change the margins. Be sure that your resume prints well with normal margin settings of 1 inch. Headers and footers in appearing printed web pages can be removed or modified if you wish.  (Remember, any modifications made to the page setup apply only to the brower on your computer. The employer could have a completely different setup, so the best we can do is anticipate normal settings).
9. Edit as appropriate.
• Small corrections can be made directly inside the "résumé" field on the Edit Profile page.
• More extensive changes should be done in Notepad on your .txt file. When changes are complete, save the .txt file, select contents, copy to clipboard, clear the résumé field in your CollectiveNet profile, and paste as before.

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Format Conversion:

When you do a Save As to convert your Word document to a text-based document, Word handles common formatting elements as described below.  You can choose to control the process by replacing any/all of these formatting elements yourself before converting the file to a text-based document.  If you do go this route please be sure to make a backup copy of your nicely formatted résumé before altering anything.

• Hard Returns:  Hard returns in your Word document will translate directly with the same functionality.  No change is needed.
• Tabs:  Tabs should be used sparingly.  Consider replacing tabs with spaces.  When converted to text, each tab represents a uniform number of spaces (on the order of 8-10) no matter what type or position the tab stop has in Word.  The exact number of space per tab seems to depend on the version of Word.
• Font Characteristics:  Any use of varied font properties such as face, style, size, and color will be ignored in conversion to text.  Your resume will be displayed in a single, uniform font.
• Headers/Footers:  Headers and footers should be removed since they do not convert nicely to text.  On conversion, Word inserts a line containing the header or footer at the position where it thinks the page break should occur.  This causes problem since the actual page break may occur at a different location.
• Tables:  Tables should be removed since they do not convert nicely to text.
• Bullets/Numbering:  Word will convert bullets and automatic numbering using a character that it believes best matches the bullet/number style in use. Any indentation will be lost.  You might choose to control the conversion of bullets by replacing them with a character of your choice such as an asterisk (*), minus (-), or plus (+).
• Paragraph Indentation:  Hanging indentation and indentation of entire paragraphs from the right or left will be ignored in conversion to text.  First line indentation will be converted into a corresponding number of spaces.
• Paragraph Justification:  Right or center paragraph justification will be ignored in conversion to text.  In text-based documents, every paragraph is left justified.
• Line Spacing:  Line spacing will be ignored in conversion to text.  In text-based documents, every line is single spaced.

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