What Is Resume Scanning?
Typically, resume scanning software does the following:

• Creates electronic images or “snapshots” of resumes
  
• Turns these images into electronic text files by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software
  

Here's how resume scanning works on the employer's end: When your paper resume arrives via U.S. mail or fax, it is placed into a scanner (a piece of equipment that looks like a photocopy machine). At the press of a button, the scanner creates an electronic image of your resume. This electronic image is next processed by the system's OCR software, which acts as artificial intelligence to examine the image file, recognize characters, and recreate your resume as a text file. As a text file, your resume is an e-resume, which can be treated like all e-resumes as described in What is an Electronic Resume?

What happens to the image file of your resume? If a resume database is sophisticated, it will create a database file for your e-resume and it will also store the image file so that hiring managers can view your resume as it originally appeared on paper.