E-mailing your resume

Another great breakthrough in technology is the e-mail. Potential employers have thought of yet another way to avoid a pile of paper on their desk. The will advertise for an employee and instead of a fax number or mailing address it will have an e-mail address. This can be good and bad for different reasons. The good is that if your résumé is already stored on your computer then all you have to do is put it in a folder and sent it as an attachment, with your cover letter being your e-mail page. There are no busy numbers for fax machines and you don’t have to leave the house.

The bad is that you don’t know if they received it or even read it. Some computers can’t read certain files. If you saved it on a word document from 2001 windows, a new computer may not be able to open it. Even with upgraded machines, some computers can’t read or open certain files. Then your next thought is I will send a did you get my résumé e-mail and then you don’t look so professional. You look paranoid that they did not get it.

So now what to do you do. If there is no other way to get your résumé to these potential employers then do the e-mail, try save it as best you can. But in the body of the e-mail make a note saying, you are attaching a file of my résumé with this e-mail. If you have any trouble opening it please contact me by phone and leave your number which should also be on your résumé or please send me an e-mail and I will resend it.

Another way would be to call the company; there is sometimes a phone number or the name of the company as well. Call to follow up with the human resources department and if they confirm they had trouble opening your file ask them for a fax number or an address because you really want to apply for that job.

E-mailing is great and more and more people are doing it. So make sure you have an upgraded computer save it to the file as best as you can. Then if you want follow up with an e-mail but wait at 2 days. If you don’t hear something first then call and find out what happened.