que sara

A first.
I just sent out a cover letter, resume, and reference list for a position a local college. Within an hour, I get a reply that my contact information is not on them.
Um, no. It's in the header. It's taking a bit of restraint for me to not write back saying this and include "dumbass".

I'm going to file this under "job I might not want to have". Why? Because if it were me who was in charge of receiving resumes, I'd actually open the files I got and view them in a normal window. Or I'd have put in the post that files must be plain text format or plain text compatible. I see today's experience as a hint that the person in charge or people I'd work with have less attention to detail than I do and have minimal problem solving skills, which to me is not an ideal work situation.

But ultimately, this experience is informative. I now know that people will not reliably know to view a document in Word, even when the applicant has stated that the files are formatted for Word 97-2003 in the email to files are attached to. Apparently, depending on how the recipient chooses to view the file, header information may not show up.
Live and learn.