Presuming you've written a great resume to begin with, here's what you really need to know about your electronic version:

1. It must be searchable.

2. It must be in ASCII format.

Searchable:

Someone searching Internet resume banks for perfect candidate (you) needs to be able to weed out all unqualified candidates, which potentially number in tens of thousands nowadays. Typically, they'll enter search terms intended to eliminate vast majority of posted resumes and select most promising. They do this much as one might perform an Internet search on Google or another search engine, by entering key word search terms

Their search might be limited to a certain geographical area, a certain skill set or qualification, or a certain job description, among obvious search categories.

The geographical part is easy - your contact information will help someone looking for a software designer in San Francisco Bay area or a pretzel maker in Milwaukee find you if you are qualified and live in right part of world.

However, if you have technical qualifications that can be searched in different ways - "Bachelor of Science" and "B.Sc." for example, your resume should use both variants so that a search engine finds you either way.

And if you possess job experience that's highly relevant to job in question, be sure to describe it in most common ways that it would likely be searched on.

1. Sending your letter to wrong person, location, or department.

Do you really want your letter to land you a job at company you're sending it to? Then take time to verify that you have proper name, title and address for hiring manager or other decision maker who should receive it.

Unless you're absolutely sure you already have most up- to-date contact information, take a few minutes to call and ask. Otherwise you may as well not bother sending your letter - it most likely won't reach intended recipient. And if it does, he or she won't be impressed that you didn't bother to take this simple step.

2. Irritating your potential employer with a pushy, arrogant or conceited tone to your letter.

Are you truly God's gift to humanity? If not, chances are you ought to come across with a bit of humility, not braggadocio. Save "I am too good for you not to hire me" stuff for when you're bragging to your friends about great job you just landed. (Even they probably won't be impressed - and they already like you!) Instead, let your accomplishments and skills speak for themselves.

3. Typos, misspellings, punctuation or grammatical errors.

There's no excuse for leaving any of these mistakes in a cover letter (or a resume for that matter). If such matters truly aren't your strong suite, ask a friend to look your letter over for you. Blatant errors like these are just one more reason for a hiring manager to shunt your resume and cover letter aside, never to be seen again. Why? Because they'll think you are too lazy, too uncaring or too unskilled to be a good fit at their company.