Nowadays there are plenty of ways to send a resume to a future employer. Whether the application begins via an email, a separate website or LinkedIn, often all it takes is just one click to send the CV to the right place.
But in an era when recruiters receive countless resumes each day, it can be quite a challenge to stand out from the crowd. Unless, of course, you do something unexpected, like faxing your resume with which – and this is not a joke – you could actually end up landing a job interview even faster.
We’re not exaggerating when we say that the average employer is bombarded by tens if not hundreds of resumes sent through email or via the company’s own site once a job is advertised, so it’s not surprising to learn that an average of only six seconds is spent reviewing CVs. As a result, candidates try various tricks to try and get noticed so they’ll get called in for an interview, from making the resume and its contents more appealing to following up once the CV has been entered into the pot. Unfortunately, despite all the effort made to ensure at least a job interview there is still always a chance that the application ends up in the trash can without ever being seen.
The fax, however, is an entirely different deal. First of all, the concept of faxing is not dead: quite the contrary, the industry flourishes thanks to internet faxing. And secondly, research shows that – on the whole – emails are easier to put aside for a while, but SMS messages and faxes are viewed almost immediately due to their attention-demanding nature.
So, it’s safe to assume that a resume sent over by fax will easily end up on the right desk, as receiving such a document via a fax message is so unexpected that the employer will definitely remember the applicant’s name.
Although faxing resumes might be quite tempting because of these reasons, using this method of communication should be restricted only to the following cases:
If none of these requirements apply, then assume that faxing the resume is out of question. In that regard, note that an unsolicited fax is considered rude, and could even lead to the automatic rejection of the application.
Faxing may seem just like emailing documents through telephone cables, but since this is an entirely different technology there are certain things to be taken into consideration before sending the resume through copper wires.
Since faxed documents travel through phone cables and are converted to and from phone signals for transmission, they will always look inferior in quality when compared to a simple email attachment.
With that in mind it’s best to adapt the resume for faxing by choosing the simplest of designs, devoid of photos, links (aside from QR codes), thick borders and colors that are not black or white. Also, keep proper spacing between lines and ensure the font – which should be a professional-looking choice – is sized between 12 and 20. To really make sure that the resume is ready to send over fax, simply print the document out and fax it to yourself using an online fax service to see how it’ll look once faxed.
By default, faxes also come with the so-called cover page that is full of information like the contact information of the sender and receiver and how many pages the fax consists of. This cover page can also contain an additional message that can be a formal letter informing the receiver of the fax’s purpose or doubling as the cover letter. This way you have the option to kill two birds with one stone and save a full page, which is beneficial for both you and the recruiter.
You might think it might be expensive to fax – whether that’s buying a machine for the purpose or paying for a faxing solution – but there is actually no need to subscribe to an online faxing service just to send a short document on an occasional basis.
In that regard it’s a good idea to use free online faxing solutions like FaxZero that can send your resume in the same effective way as their paid, professional counterparts. But by using such a free service you won’t be able to receive any faxes in response since it doesn’t provide you with a dedicated fax number, so you’ll want to make sure that other contact methods – like your email, home address and phone number – are prominently listed on your resume to give the recruiter other means of getting back to you.
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