Stephen Marks came to me as an older worker with decades of warehouse management expertise; his current company was shutting down, and he needed to explore additional opportunities. His ASCII resume was prepared according to the conventions taught in the CDI audio training, “ASCII Resume Conversion.” I used rules (created with hyphens and equal signs), bullets (created with asterisks), and arrows (created with hyphen + greater than signs) to enhance readability and to call attention to important elements. I also added extra line spacing to improve readability between paragraphs and bullets, each built with a maximum of 60 characters.

Stephen is likely to upload his resume to applicant tracking systems (ATSs) in application for similar warehouse management positions, so an ASCII resume will ease copying and pasting into the boxes so provided, should the ATS not accept Word or PDF formats.

From a content strategy perspective, Stephen held two paid positions since 1999; the goal was to demonstrate the depth and breadth of his experience as a technical expert and team leader. I used intermediary functional headings to call attention to this expertise. The bulleted accomplishments substantiate his claims to expertise.

Moreover, as a member of his local community, where he intended to stay and seek additional employment, we chose to mention his volunteer leadership as a girls’ volleyball coach. Clearly, he earned the respect of kids and their parents–not to mention the schools and leagues–as “Coach Marks.”