Pretty simple question. If a job ad gives you the option of emailing your resume in or sending it to a regular mail address, would either method be preferable? I have come accross a lot of ads that give both options. All things being equal, I’d personally just email it it becaue it would be easier for me. Would there be any advantage to sending an acutal printed copy instead? Or, would emailing it in have any advantages over sending in a physical copy?
e-mail.
Free and faster.
If the “job ad” expresses a preference, I’d go with that.
You could call the human resources/hiring department of the company and ask if they have a preference.
But, more and more, anything that can be done e-mail seems to be preferred. But if you DO e-mail it, make sure you use the correct e-mail address. Where I work, we get folks e-mailing just about everyone with resumes, sometimes even spamming the company. This will count against you in pursuit of a job, for sure. So make sure you’re sending it to the correct place.
email. Easier and faster. It’s also easier for the person receiving the email to pass it on to others in the company.
Haj
One caveat about email, and e-resumes.
It’s more difficult to control the appearance of your document. Even if you and the recipient have the same program (say, MS Word) their program settings may make the resume appear different on their screen than it does on yours.
So stick to plain text. Use hard returns rather than word wrap, forget about special formatting things like bolding, underlines and indents.
When I was looking for a job, I sent two resumes, one in MS Word and one as ASCII text.
Yojimboguy: If you’re worried about presentation I would suggest Adobe Acrobat format (.pdf - Which stands for Portable Document Format).
I think more computers have it installed (and on Unix machines too) than would have Microsoft Word. Remember If they’re using Word 97 you can’t send in Word XP format etc etc.
What Skip said - you can convert docs to Acrobat now even on-line at the Adobe site.
When I’m interviewing, I’ll accept resumes in either electronic or hard-copy form. Our company, however, does require a hard-copy and a hard-copy job application at some point in the process before final interviews and selection.
I agree with skip, if you are going to submit it electronically, PDF is a good format. Or RTF. I would not use Word unless they specifiy it.
How about both?
I’d go with e-mail. Depending on your field, and job market, sometimes the employers have to resort to limiting their contenders to the first received rather than combing through all of them.
I’d stay away from submitting it both ways, unless you want to look like someone who can’t keep track of what you have done. 
I have Acrobat Reader. I cannot create Acrobat format files. I didn’t know that you could go somewhere online to do this.
If so, I agree that Acrobat would be an excellent choice.
Fax it. Then regular mail then email. Most emailed resumes are ignored even if they are sent to the proper addresses with the appropriate formatting.
Depends on the company and the job. If you’re applying for an advertising job, for instance, I’d recommend creating a kick-ass resume which shows off your creativity and sending it via snail mail in an eye-catching envelope.
If it’s for your basic entry level job at a Fortune 500 company, where your skill base and GPA are more important than your creativity, I’d send it via e-mail. That way it can be forwarded to dozens of managers simply and quickly.
Good luck!
This really depends on the company, and how they process the resumes they receive.
Many, many companies – including virtually all medium-to-large outfits – turn resume submissions into text files for an applicant database. Webhire, PeopleClick, Resumix, etc. – these are very common applications in the HR field. The database then allows the recruiter to search the applicant pool for key words: “visual basic,” or “security clearance,” or “commercial driving license,” or whatever.
If you send in only a hard copy, it has to be physically scanned. The big companies outsource this; the smaller ones can’t afford it. This creates a delay between when your resume is received, and when somebody actually looks at it (on line). It also risks introducing errors into your resume, as the OCR software may misinterpret one or more letters. The hiring manager may never see your original resume, and will have to assume that the “typos” are your fault.
Faxes are even worse, obviously. We saw a number of faxed resumes that were so illegible that the scanner couldn’t extract anything out of them, and those applications were simply dumped.
Even a Word document isn’t the best idea, as alluded to by yojimboguy. You can’t control how the text parser will interpret the formatting; there’s no “center” code in plaintext, for example. Similar problems may arise with PDF docs, though it’s been a couple of years since I’ve been in a formal HR position and my knowledge of resume processing systems is a bit out of date. However, I can say that since HR is chronically one of the worst-funded functions in any organization, the probability that any given HR department will have the latest and greatest is pretty low.
The best and safest alternative is to assume some sort of applicant database, and to send your resume as plaintext in the body of your email. You can then format the information as you like, with equals signs as dividers or whatever, and being careful to put in your own line breaks at a safe line length. This radically minimizes the likelihood that the processing will mangle your resume.
From my time in HR in four different technology-oriented companies, I can absolutely say that the applicants who submitted their resumes in plaintext format were the ones who got in front of the hiring manager the fastest.
I was just forwarded a resume of a friend of a friend. It came across just fine on email as a Word attachment.
(Unfortunately, the resume itself was poorly written and needed work!)
I would think that if a firm suggests sending it either way, it wouldn’t make any difference. I personally think sending it email shows you are at least computer literate enough to know how to send an email. (Don’t laugh…there are a lot of people who would not be able to do that.)
I would do both. Email it with a note that you will be mailing a copy too. That way you will be covered no matter which way they prefer to look at it.
Also, it can’t hurt to let them see it twice.
When applying for positions at large law firms, I have had infinitely more success snail mailing my resume, printed on pricey bond paper.
As other posters have indicated, it depends on the company that you are sending your resume to.