Prepare Resume in text format for posting

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

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 resume 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 resume 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 resume, 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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LinkedIn Profile for use in our CollectiveNet LinkedIn Group:

The LinkedIn Profile is not a resume. It consists of sections that might makeup a resume:
(Note: Items in [ ] brackets are optional choice selections.)

1. Basic Information
• First Name
• Last Name
• Display Name e.g.: First Last or First L
• Professional Headline
• Location and Industry: Country, Zip, and Industry
2. Summary
• Professional Experience and Goals
• Specialties
3. Experience - Positions
• Company Name
• Title
• Time Period: [Month] Year to Present or [Month] Year
• Description
4. Education
• School Name
• Degree
• Field(s) of Study
• Dates Attended [Year] to [Year]
• Activities and Societies
• Additional Notes
5. Recommendations - You can ask others for recommendations.
(Suggestion: If you 'exchange' recommendations with a friend, assure a time lapse between, so it is not so obvious!)
6. Additional Information
• Websites - You can provide links for up to three.
• Interests
• Groups and Associations
• Honors and Awards
7. Personal Information   (This is entirely optional and safer being omitted)
• Phone Number
• IM Instant Messaging
• Address
• Birthday [Month] [Day]   (can be cleared by selecting [Day...|v])
• Birth Year [Year]   (can be cleared by selecting [Choose...|v])
• Marital Status   (can be cleared by selecting [Choose...|v])
8. Contact Settings
• What type of messages will you accept?
• Opportunity Preferences
• What advice would you give to users considering contacting you?

Sign in to LinkedIn or Join LinkedIn. Under the Profile menu item select 'Edit Profile'.
Click on the Edit link to edit that section.
The typical copy and paste techniques work here as well.
Be sure to [Save Changes] or Cancel when finished with each section.
For illustrated instructions, see our Resources: How To Slide Show List.

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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 resume 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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