Guidelines for faxing your resume

Although faxing your resume may seem like a good choice since it will reach the recruiter fast, the quality and neatness of your resume will be compromised. For this reason, you should only consider faxing your resume and cover letter when:

• The employer requests it in the advertisement.
• When you have to meet a deadline for an application.
• When you have already spoken to the recruiter or employer and informed him that you will fax it and will send or deliver a hard copy of the resume at a certain date.

Disadvantages of faxing your resume

• Besides the poor quality of faxes, most employers regard unsolicited faxes as rude. Their first impression of you when you send a fax without prior arrangement is that you are unconsidered of their resources and ignorant about business ethics.
• Your privacy can be compromised when faxing your resume since several employees may share the same fax facility and may read your resume.
• Your fax can get misplaced.
  

Things to do when faxing your resume

• Always mail or deliver the original CV or resume after sending the fax.
• Make use of a good quality fax facility that provides a record of when the fax is received and that indicates how many pages have been transmitted.
• Call the recruiter or employer to confirm that the fax has been received and is eligible.
• Include a cover page that includes your contact information, purpose of the fax, recipient details and your cover letter.
• Use black ink or font color on white bond paper. If your font color is blue or another color on the original resume or CV, the fax will not be legible for the employer.
• Never use color paper.
• Don't use too small fonts but remember that your font size may not exceed more than 20 points. The font size must be no smaller than 12 points. Many employers may wish to scan a copy and thus need a larger font.
• If your original resume has a lot of dark borders, you should first make a print without the borders. Too much black lines will appear untidy.
• First print a copy to make sure that it is legible before faxing your CV from your computer.
• Set the fax machine to fine mode to ensure high quality transmission.
• Include a header with your name and contact details on every page.
• Don't condense your letters; rather use normal spacing or an extra point apart between two letters to make the resume more readable.