Pasting CV in text format in online forms
Thread poster: Margreet Mohle
Margreet Mohle
Margreet Mohle  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 04:06
Member (2010)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Sep 9, 2010

Hello all,

This is maybe a simple technical question, but I have spent a lot of time trying to make my CV look decent when pasting it in online registration forms, and also when reacting to job offers on Proz with the email form (as far as I can see, I cannot make any attachments to that).

I have set up my CV in Word/Open Office, converted it to a text file, cleaned it up; but whenever the window in a form is of a different size, everything ends up all over the place. T
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Hello all,

This is maybe a simple technical question, but I have spent a lot of time trying to make my CV look decent when pasting it in online registration forms, and also when reacting to job offers on Proz with the email form (as far as I can see, I cannot make any attachments to that).

I have set up my CV in Word/Open Office, converted it to a text file, cleaned it up; but whenever the window in a form is of a different size, everything ends up all over the place. This of course is not a great way to make a first impression, however, I don't know what to do except change everything by hand; plus I can't use tabs in those forms, because they'll just bring me to the next category on the form.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how I should handle this?

Thank you very much in advance.

Margreet
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Jenn Mercer
Jenn Mercer  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 04:06
Member (2009)
French to English
Acceptance Sep 9, 2010

Margaret,

I hate the way my CV looks in online forms as well, but I console myself with the thought that all of the CVs received in this way will look awful. I fix the worst of the formatting problems, but do not spend more than 5 minutes on this. I just don't have the time. I think, and maybe someone from a translation agency can correct me, that forms received in this way are automatically scanned for key information. On occasion, an agency with an online form has asked me to ema
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Margaret,

I hate the way my CV looks in online forms as well, but I console myself with the thought that all of the CVs received in this way will look awful. I fix the worst of the formatting problems, but do not spend more than 5 minutes on this. I just don't have the time. I think, and maybe someone from a translation agency can correct me, that forms received in this way are automatically scanned for key information. On occasion, an agency with an online form has asked me to email a 'more recent' résumé and I think these are the ones that are read in depth.
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Frank van Thienen (X)
Frank van Thienen (X)  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 01:06
Dutch to English
do the best you can Sep 9, 2010

Hi Margaret,

Be sure to include links to your ProZ profile and possibly others (LinkedIn, whatever). That is assuming of course that your ProZ profile is in good shape. That is definitely worth spending a good chunk of time on.

Frank


 
Drew MacFadyen
Drew MacFadyen  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 04:06
Spanish to English
+ ...
paste text without formatting changes Sep 9, 2010

you could keep a copy of your CV/Resume in a notepad or text only editor which will eliminate some of the more common formatting headaches when pasting.

A free utility http://www.stevemiller.net/puretext/ puretext works with windows and allows you to copy and then paste without any of the source document formatting. i.e. if you have indents, bullets etc, when you paste, you will only be
... See more
you could keep a copy of your CV/Resume in a notepad or text only editor which will eliminate some of the more common formatting headaches when pasting.

A free utility http://www.stevemiller.net/puretext/ puretext works with windows and allows you to copy and then paste without any of the source document formatting. i.e. if you have indents, bullets etc, when you paste, you will only be pasting the text (pure text). I find this useful when copy and pasting to spreadsheets and i want the pasted text to have the target/spreadsheet formatting and not the source document formatting.

Regards,

Drew
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Margreet Mohle
Margreet Mohle  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 04:06
Member (2010)
French to Dutch
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
No worries then... Sep 10, 2010

Thank you all for your comments, glad my CV is not the only one looking awful; I was afraid I just completely missed something.
I do always include my Proz profile, since that certainly looks better than the .txt resume. I'd like to know how agencies look at these CV's, I was guessing, like Jenn, that they just do a keyword search or so.
Thanks for the link to the puretext program, Drew, I might give it a try.


 
freddy7
freddy7  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:06
English to French
+ ...
html Sep 10, 2010

The main problem is due to the way html handles spaces: it removes most of them.

If you want to add spaces for indenting, just add " " to replace one space.


 
Celine Gras
Celine Gras  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:06
Member (2008)
English to French
+ ...
To add tabs in forms Sep 10, 2010

simply press Ctrl + tab

Cheers


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:06
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Simplify it Sep 10, 2010

Margreet Mohle wrote:
This is maybe a simple technical question, but I have spent a lot of time trying to make my CV look decent when pasting it in online registration forms, and also when reacting to job offers on Proz with the email form (as far as I can see, I cannot make any attachments to that).


Create a separate CV that is compatible with the online forms. When doing this, keep in mind that many such forms also reduce multiple spaces or tabs to single spaces, do don't try to create columns using multiple spaces or tabs.


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:06
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Using HTML in forms Sep 10, 2010

freddy7 wrote:
The main problem is due to the way html handles spaces: it removes most of them.
If you want to add spaces for indenting, just add " " to replace one space.


This only works if the form accepts HTML codes. Be careful that you don't end up sending a CV that has a lot of HTML codes in it, if the form doesn't convert those codes into spaces.


 


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Pasting CV in text format in online forms






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