Established in 1996, MEPatWORK is the leading full-service recruitment solutions provider in the HVAC, sheet metal, refrigeration, control, electrical, plumbing and piping industries. Headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, this privately held company also has offices in Chicago and Pittsburgh and specializes in finding top talent for all levels of contracting, wholesale, and manufacturing.

Be sure that you place your name and contact information at top of page. Scanners assume that text at top is your name and contact information. If you have more than one page for your resume then place your name and a page number on each additional page and attach them with a paper clip, do not use staples.

Even if following resume characteristics apply specifically to your industry, you must eliminate them. These include columns, newspaper-style designs, landscape printing, and fancy fonts. Scanning system abilities differ from company to company so it’s difficult to set boundaries. Some are able to read just about anything and others are confused by smallest detail. So if you are unaware of limitations of system then play it safe and follow simplest guidelines.

It is not a good idea to fax your resume to employer. Faxing can reduce clarity of text. Unless employer uses OCR-capable equipment, then avoid faxing. If you are not certain of what equipment they use then send a hard copy in mail or send an ASCII version by e-mail.

It may seem boring to simplify your resume, but at least it will be easily searchable and hopefully placed in firm’s database to be read. You do not want to take chance of having your resume thrown out due to a scanning problem. We can only hope that as technology advances scannable resume will not be so limited!