Remember in college when you didn’t have a printer so you forwarded a draft of your paper to yourself, to print at the computer lab … only to get to the lab and find out the font you chose didn’t show up correctly? At this point you might have had to skip another class to fix your work, or hand it in as-is with formatting mistakes. Some professors probably understood and said this was OK, while others automatically gave you a bad grade – or worse – failed your assignment.
The same applies to creating a resume. I continually hear that the one big complaint is a resume in a Word document that can’t open. (And at my old office when we hired people for public relations positions, this was a big no-no.) Even if someone opens your resume in Google Docs, they might not be able to see the correct formatting and fonts. Believe me, I’ve been there.
What’s the smartest way to achieve formatting success with your resume? You turn it into a PDF. When you do this, all of your fonts and formatting stay the same and there’s no fear the document you’re viewing on your end appears as a mess on the other. So, how do you create a PDF of a Word document you ask? It’s actually very easy!
1) In Microsoft Word, go to “File”
2) Click on “Save As”
3) Click the arrows on the “Format” tab. You should see “PDF” as an option. Select it.
4) Hit “Save”
5) You now have your PDF document that is ready for view on either a Mac or PC. Congratulations! You can now e-mail your cover letters and resumes feeling confident it will appear as you see it.
Yes! I have forgotten to do this before and it’s a crucial detail! You can also use neevia online to convert other file formats to PDF.
Thanks for the tip, Samantha!