Here is one of those sneaky little problems most users don’t see when completely online applications but those of us on the other side see all the time. And this problem can create a bunch of big problems.
Here’s the deal…if you cut and paste material directly from a Word document into an online form often times extra characters are added. These are the Word smart tag characters and are great when moving from one Microsoft product to the next but not so great when filling out online forms.
What this can do is make your responses look funky when we read it after it has been entered. Because these are background characters you don’t see them right away but when the form is processed to put it into a database these come out.
This created two big problem times. The first is when the computers scan your resume and application for information. These smart tag characters add length and can break up what would otherwise have been great content.
The second time this is a problem is when someone like me needs to read your response. This extra junk looks bad and is one more reason for your application to be rejected.
So what should you do?
Never cut and paste information directly from Word into an online form. First cut and paste it to Notepad them to the form.
An even better way and I recommend this all the time is to put all your responses into a notepad texted file and save it. Then when it comes time to complete online applications you can quickly cut and paste for the notepad file.
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