Dear CareerBabe:

I have written you before, and believe me I am so grateful for your advise and web page. It has taken me 20 years to earn my BS. I am 2 semesters away from completion and want to send my resume to a few companies on-line. My question is: What is ASCII format?

Dear ASCII:

ASCII stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange." This standard was set up in 1968. Basically, what it means is this: if you write your resume so it is good-looking, in WORD or WordPerfect, for example, ASCII is a sort of "universal" language which will allow your resume to be posted on the Web, no matter what program you wrote it in. So, unfortunately your resume will lose any good-looking format (but not the information!) that you use. I recommend that when someone "bites" and is interested in your background, you e-mail or fax them an attractive version of your resume that retains the good formatting.

Good Luck!