When writing a resume, the name of the file is a detail low in importance for most job-seekers. Unfortunately, this inattention leads many to disregard the filename. Palladian, a career-coaching company, completed a study of filenames used by actual job-seekers for their resumes, and identified a number of common mistakes and best practices.

Palladian indentified four elements that routinely appear in the filenames of resume. The most common was an indication of the job seeker's name. Also common were the word "resume," a version number of the resume, and the date the resume was written.

Ninety-two percent of resumes included some indication of the candidate's name, but only 58 percent contained both the first and last name. Nine percent of the file names contained no reference to the candidate and were called: "resume," "myresume" and "resume2009."

Other Information: A large percentage of resume filenames contained information of no value to a hiring manager. Two common items were the date the resume was written and the version number of the resume. Some job-seekers included information in the filename that had no meaning. Other job-seekers seemed to have used the resume of someone else as a template, since the filename contained a different person's name. Others had random words with no apparent meaning.

Best Practices:

• Use your first and last name in the file name.
• Include the word "resume"
• Include a keyword phrase (1 to 3 words summarizing your job or industry)
• Separate words with hyphens