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"The full user experience" is pretty horrifying. It's depressing that this is what has become "normal".
Why edlin? You should be using ed (on a Unix-like system) if you want to claim real geekness.
I'm not that cool. I stick to vi.
I'm not that cool. I stick to vi.
"A lot of times, PDFs don???t convert well into these systems. Instead of searchable text, they convert into indecipherable images with no discernable text."
This only happens if you are embedding the text as images. You can create your resume in whatever program you want (I like OpenOffice) and then use any number of free or paid PDF converters. One of the PDF conversion options is to keep the text as text or convert it to an image. Keeping it as text not only eliminates the problem of a PDF becoming non-searchable, but also reduces the size of the document in most cases. PDF is also by far the most resistant to version incompatibilities that so plague Office because PDF is based on standards and the PostScript language.
This only happens if you are embedding the text as images. You can create your resume in whatever program you want (I like OpenOffice) and then use any number of free or paid PDF converters. One of the PDF conversion options is to keep the text as text or convert it to an image. Keeping it as text not only eliminates the problem of a PDF becoming non-searchable, but also reduces the size of the document in most cases. PDF is also by far the most resistant to version incompatibilities that so plague Office because PDF is based on standards and the PostScript language.
Word documents can contain invisible data such as past deletions. That can be embarrassing, if care isn't taken to strip out such metadata.
it's possible to embed tracking in PDFs, and really the person viewing/printing/forwarding the PDF might have no idea this info is being sent back... (this is popular with e-transcripts). would that be considered a pro or con?
i agree about the cons of Word metadata... I wonder how many people don't realize it's really easy to know exactly how many minutes you spent on that resume, when it was created, or how many times it's been saved, if they were using their work computer, all which seem trivial to know, but might say a lot about a candidate that isn't being written on the resume itself.
i agree about the cons of Word metadata... I wonder how many people don't realize it's really easy to know exactly how many minutes you spent on that resume, when it was created, or how many times it's been saved, if they were using their work computer, all which seem trivial to know, but might say a lot about a candidate that isn't being written on the resume itself.
Many employers with any kind of security system are going to be questioning why a document you sent in is trying to phone home. This is a good way to get yourself blacklisted.
It seems to me that you should have multiple formats. I have a Word version with embedded fonts saved in a .doc (not docx format) for Word folks.
My main and preferred resume is a PDF. I can control what it looks like and how it presents. And since I have a graphic component to my skillset, what my resume looks like is important.
One issue with RTF is the size--some RTF can expand the size of the document. A TXT version to upload to sites is also something to have. You can do minimal formatting, but you can do some.
An HTML version, hosted on a website, is also a great thing to have.
In all of these, no graphics! There is no need. And no PDFs from scanned material--that is just a given...
My main and preferred resume is a PDF. I can control what it looks like and how it presents. And since I have a graphic component to my skillset, what my resume looks like is important.
One issue with RTF is the size--some RTF can expand the size of the document. A TXT version to upload to sites is also something to have. You can do minimal formatting, but you can do some.
An HTML version, hosted on a website, is also a great thing to have.
In all of these, no graphics! There is no need. And no PDFs from scanned material--that is just a given...
No one's advice on Resumes, their length, or their formatting matters unless it's the advice from the person whose going to be reading it.
I am finding a significant lack of depth in TR's *feature* stories of late. I call fluff.
Except I cannot see that post at the moment.
The blurb at the head of the article does say "outline of issues" so technically you should not expect depth.
The blurb at the head of the article does say "outline of issues" so technically you should not expect depth.
Do a thorough profile in LinkedIn and put the link in your email signature. Besides, that has references as well. Why create a hard copy when they can just look at the living document. If it has to be a hard copy, print your LinkedIn profile to a PDF. Better yet, make your own business card with your LinkedIn profile address printed on it. The different format should grab their attention and your efforts to reduce paper should be seen as a positive.
You have to hand feed recruiters and potential employers.
As some one who has read many hundreds of applications with resume's (or CV's) I can tell you that to follow a link to an online resume is sufficient trouble that the application goes straight to the "thanks but no thanks" pile.
As a manager you rarely have time to give each application the attention that it deserves. You end up finding reasons to discard the "dross" and focus on the quality that is left.
If you have the luxury of an assistant or someone in HR to screen the applications it is a task that often gets pushed down to the least skilled (= least paid) person and quite often they are not technically skilled enough to follow links and download documents. They are also under time pressures.
I will agree that if you are a high level manager or executive dealing with quality recruiters, they will probably download your CV but otherwise I recommend the hand feed.
As some one who has read many hundreds of applications with resume's (or CV's) I can tell you that to follow a link to an online resume is sufficient trouble that the application goes straight to the "thanks but no thanks" pile.
As a manager you rarely have time to give each application the attention that it deserves. You end up finding reasons to discard the "dross" and focus on the quality that is left.
If you have the luxury of an assistant or someone in HR to screen the applications it is a task that often gets pushed down to the least skilled (= least paid) person and quite often they are not technically skilled enough to follow links and download documents. They are also under time pressures.
I will agree that if you are a high level manager or executive dealing with quality recruiters, they will probably download your CV but otherwise I recommend the hand feed.
Quote: You end up finding reasons to discard the "dross" and focus on the quality that is left.
Unfortunately, the "dross" often contains some of the best candidates for a job, because people latch onto any excuse at all to throw away some resumes rather than coming up with good, productive approaches that will only involve some of the more poorly qualified candidates being discarded.
Yes, candidates need to try to account for that, but that doesn't mean the hiring managers in question aren't being colossal idiots about it. The end result is often that the hiring process does not select for talent in the job skills needed, but instead selects for good liars, office politics masters, manipulators, and scam artists in general who want to get something for nothing.
Unfortunately, the "dross" often contains some of the best candidates for a job, because people latch onto any excuse at all to throw away some resumes rather than coming up with good, productive approaches that will only involve some of the more poorly qualified candidates being discarded.
Yes, candidates need to try to account for that, but that doesn't mean the hiring managers in question aren't being colossal idiots about it. The end result is often that the hiring process does not select for talent in the job skills needed, but instead selects for good liars, office politics masters, manipulators, and scam artists in general who want to get something for nothing.
If you want your resume to not be seen by thoughtful human eyes, and, instead, be fed directly through a parser which mangles and grabs random scraps to toss into a black-hole data-base as part of an "applicant tracking system" or "talent management system", then use the evil MSFT Word formats (including "plain ASCII text".
If you wanted to avoid such brain-dead, thoughtless, lazy "recruiters" and reach a thoughtful, conscientious, industrious head-hunter, then it used to suffice to use PDF. Unfortunately, the execrable *&#$^+*'s have developed PDF parsers, and (mangled scraps of) your info ends up in the same black-hole, and passed around to foreign bodyshops where the cheap, pliant labor with flexible ethics can and have incorporated pieces of your resumes into theirs.
It's a Red Queen problem. I'm sure there are TeX and LaTeX and RTF parsers by now. (RTF parsers are relatively simple, and are often built in to even the simplest word processors, so, if nothing else, they could simply run a script to import the file into a word processor and then export it as whatever their resume parser wants.) There are also primitive HTML parsers, and, of course, XML parsers are readily available and easy to create.
But the big problem is that those thoughtful, conscientious, industrious head-hunters appear to be extinct, having died off some time in the late 1980s or early 1990s according to the historical records. Many of them didn't use resumes or CVs. They simply asked what sorts of work you'd done and knew the field well enough to, gasp, understand what you told them, at least in terms specific enough to honestly represent you to the appropriate hiring managers and generate interviews.
I wouldn't put a full resume up on the web because it's going to be abused. Be a little more general/less specific about where you worked, experience, skills... Recruiters will try to use it to find clients instead of using it to help you get work. Dishonest job seekers will plagiarize it to try to make themselves look better than they actually are, and thus obscure and degrade the recruiters and hiring managers, in that crucial first glance, put on your own merits.
Dal90 wrote: "No one's advice on Resumes, their length, or their formatting matters unless it's the advice from the person whose going to be reading it."
I tip my hat to you. At one time or another I worked through all of the formats and, in some cases, 2-3 variants of each, that anyone can find in the resume-writing books, and every time some "recruiter" or hiring manager would throw a fit, saying that it had something the other guys demand but he hates, or that it was in a format he hated. It seems that you could waste your life cycling through the different formats and still manage to send every one of them his most hated format.
A good hiring manager -- someone you'd really like to work with -- doesn't care. He's focused on whether you're bright and whether you could do the job with minimal training. That's the person we want to reach.
I'd also recommend that job seekers sign up for UC Davis CS prof Norm Matloff's free, e-mailed "H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter", which often provides insights into how the execs and HR people and hiring managers and lawyers look at the process, and, from time to time, the anonymized experiences of some of his current and former students and other subscribers to the news-letter.
If you wanted to avoid such brain-dead, thoughtless, lazy "recruiters" and reach a thoughtful, conscientious, industrious head-hunter, then it used to suffice to use PDF. Unfortunately, the execrable *&#$^+*'s have developed PDF parsers, and (mangled scraps of) your info ends up in the same black-hole, and passed around to foreign bodyshops where the cheap, pliant labor with flexible ethics can and have incorporated pieces of your resumes into theirs.
It's a Red Queen problem. I'm sure there are TeX and LaTeX and RTF parsers by now. (RTF parsers are relatively simple, and are often built in to even the simplest word processors, so, if nothing else, they could simply run a script to import the file into a word processor and then export it as whatever their resume parser wants.) There are also primitive HTML parsers, and, of course, XML parsers are readily available and easy to create.
But the big problem is that those thoughtful, conscientious, industrious head-hunters appear to be extinct, having died off some time in the late 1980s or early 1990s according to the historical records. Many of them didn't use resumes or CVs. They simply asked what sorts of work you'd done and knew the field well enough to, gasp, understand what you told them, at least in terms specific enough to honestly represent you to the appropriate hiring managers and generate interviews.
I wouldn't put a full resume up on the web because it's going to be abused. Be a little more general/less specific about where you worked, experience, skills... Recruiters will try to use it to find clients instead of using it to help you get work. Dishonest job seekers will plagiarize it to try to make themselves look better than they actually are, and thus obscure and degrade the recruiters and hiring managers, in that crucial first glance, put on your own merits.
Dal90 wrote: "No one's advice on Resumes, their length, or their formatting matters unless it's the advice from the person whose going to be reading it."
I tip my hat to you. At one time or another I worked through all of the formats and, in some cases, 2-3 variants of each, that anyone can find in the resume-writing books, and every time some "recruiter" or hiring manager would throw a fit, saying that it had something the other guys demand but he hates, or that it was in a format he hated. It seems that you could waste your life cycling through the different formats and still manage to send every one of them his most hated format.
A good hiring manager -- someone you'd really like to work with -- doesn't care. He's focused on whether you're bright and whether you could do the job with minimal training. That's the person we want to reach.
I'd also recommend that job seekers sign up for UC Davis CS prof Norm Matloff's free, e-mailed "H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter", which often provides insights into how the execs and HR people and hiring managers and lawyers look at the process, and, from time to time, the anonymized experiences of some of his current and former students and other subscribers to the news-letter.
Why use a proprietary format with a history of being a moving target, or one which has had some pretty nasty payloads attached recently.
LaTeX is (hopefully) not the format you send to the HR drones. Your LaTeX document gets parsed and processed, outputting . . . what?
It's the "what" that we're discussing, here.
Use the simplest, most portable format that meets your needs.
It's the "what" that we're discussing, here.
Use the simplest, most portable format that meets your needs.
Nice, brief outline. I really couldn't be bothered with articles that bang-on about flowery or philosophical differences and so-called issues. Thanks Toni for just giving the bare essentials.
You may have suggested RTF, but nobody wants to user RTF. It has some security issues associated with it.
I generally send out mine in DOC format. Just about everything opens it correctly as it is the standard. I've heard of recruiters who will ignore any other word processing format.
I have the PDF version available but generally don't use it. Not because of the ATS but if I did use it, I'd add security to it and I suspect ATS can't decipher it.
I think the majority reading this column are IT professionals - whether developers, administrators, support, etc. There shouldn't be any reason to fancy it up with charts and stuff.
Mine is in a single font, sometimes boild, sometimes a larger font, etc. No lines, no images.
My resume is in 3 pages [comfortably]. A recruiter tried to cram it in 2 but looked horrible. I could remove some stuff but not to 2 pages.
I generally send out mine in DOC format. Just about everything opens it correctly as it is the standard. I've heard of recruiters who will ignore any other word processing format.
I have the PDF version available but generally don't use it. Not because of the ATS but if I did use it, I'd add security to it and I suspect ATS can't decipher it.
I think the majority reading this column are IT professionals - whether developers, administrators, support, etc. There shouldn't be any reason to fancy it up with charts and stuff.
Mine is in a single font, sometimes boild, sometimes a larger font, etc. No lines, no images.
My resume is in 3 pages [comfortably]. A recruiter tried to cram it in 2 but looked horrible. I could remove some stuff but not to 2 pages.
Quote 1: RTF. . . has some security issues
Quote 2: I . . . send out mine in DOC format
Can you not see the contradictory nature of these statements? One of them suggests security is an issue, and the other ignores security as an issue.
Quote 2: I . . . send out mine in DOC format
Can you not see the contradictory nature of these statements? One of them suggests security is an issue, and the other ignores security as an issue.
Because most recruiters use some sort of character scanning software that does poorly on formatted MS Word documents with font changes. I then did a Rich Text resume and began sending it out. Very quickly I received emails stating that they could not accept a RTF file, to issue it as a MS Word file. If a recruiter cannot open a RTF file with MS Word; do I really want to work with them? I then saved the RTF as a DOC for the ignoramuses. I now have three resumes, one is a formatted MS Word with tabs and bold text headers that looks good printed, the RTF saved as a DOC, and a HTM version for the Internet crowd. The bullet resume crowd still has problems with the scanning software the same as the formatted MS Word. You cannot please everyone.
The ATS insight is very helpful knowledge for potential I.T. professionals to know
When the employer asks for a specific format, that's the format to use. This trumps all other concerns.
Well . . . sorta. It might make sense to use RTF, but name it with a .doc filename extension for those too stupid to realize that MS Word works just fine with RTF.
Well . . . sorta. It might make sense to use RTF, but name it with a .doc filename extension for those too stupid to realize that MS Word works just fine with RTF.
Since the mid-90s I had used the RTF format for all job applications with the objective to avoid the potentially corruptive effect of the local Word ???normal.dot??? and thus, to ensure that the reader see largely the same presentation that I did.
Later, in transition to FOSS including Linux and LibreOffice, I thought that RTF would be an ideal format to exchange documents, not only for within the Microsoft platform, but also between all other platforms/products that can manipulate RTF.
I realized too late that this is false. By opening/editing the same RTF document back and forth between Word 2000 and LibreOffice 3, I have been shocked to see unacceptable results that I had not intended!
For this reason I recommend no longer RTF, but PDF instead. The ???Export as PDF??? in Open/LibreOffice is a very cheap and useful tool and a good one as it has many configurable options that other ???free??? tools do not.
I am not an expert with PDF but I am aware that it has numerous complex features. I do not recommend, for example, to export in the ???PDF/A-1a??? standard format, because a distractive information strip would be displayed across the top of the page that the reader does not want and may not understand as well as the participants here!
To enable a PDF file exported from LibreOffice to display as you wish and over-ride the receivers' defaults, one may experiment with the PDF options under the tabs ???Initial View??? and ???User Interface???. It is in one's interest to understand all of them.
Of course, one should not forget the ???properties??? on both the source and destination files. Many properties are converted. Clean them out or enhance them.
I usually appreciate Toni Bowers' articles. In this one she lacks precision. The conversion (export) mentioned above of text to text yields a PDF file that is searchable and copyable. Of course if one were to scan an image of text and not to use OCR in the process, then the result in the PDF would be, also, entirely image and obviously useless for ATS. Always control the quality of the text output!
I appreciate the comments to the effect that in 2012, any office that cannot handle multiple common and legitimate formats is not serious.
Later, in transition to FOSS including Linux and LibreOffice, I thought that RTF would be an ideal format to exchange documents, not only for within the Microsoft platform, but also between all other platforms/products that can manipulate RTF.
I realized too late that this is false. By opening/editing the same RTF document back and forth between Word 2000 and LibreOffice 3, I have been shocked to see unacceptable results that I had not intended!
For this reason I recommend no longer RTF, but PDF instead. The ???Export as PDF??? in Open/LibreOffice is a very cheap and useful tool and a good one as it has many configurable options that other ???free??? tools do not.
I am not an expert with PDF but I am aware that it has numerous complex features. I do not recommend, for example, to export in the ???PDF/A-1a??? standard format, because a distractive information strip would be displayed across the top of the page that the reader does not want and may not understand as well as the participants here!
To enable a PDF file exported from LibreOffice to display as you wish and over-ride the receivers' defaults, one may experiment with the PDF options under the tabs ???Initial View??? and ???User Interface???. It is in one's interest to understand all of them.
Of course, one should not forget the ???properties??? on both the source and destination files. Many properties are converted. Clean them out or enhance them.
I usually appreciate Toni Bowers' articles. In this one she lacks precision. The conversion (export) mentioned above of text to text yields a PDF file that is searchable and copyable. Of course if one were to scan an image of text and not to use OCR in the process, then the result in the PDF would be, also, entirely image and obviously useless for ATS. Always control the quality of the text output!
I appreciate the comments to the effect that in 2012, any office that cannot handle multiple common and legitimate formats is not serious.
I've applied for jobs where the employer specified that they would only accept resumes in plain text format, presumably 1) to eliminate layout and formatting tricks that are intended to appeal to human eyes but add nothing of consequence or value otherwise to the document and 2) to increase their "readability" by reducing font-induced inaccuracies for machines used to scan the resumes and narrow down the search based on certain keywords or similar criteria.
I also agree with apotheon that the potential employer has the last word on the subject. If they reject the format you're try to push, it's all moot anyway.
I also agree with apotheon that the potential employer has the last word on the subject. If they reject the format you're try to push, it's all moot anyway.
Recruiters and their helper monkeys use keyword counters to decide your career opportunities because they don't have the time (or ability) to properly assess your candidacy (forget lateral thinking & cross-training!). Therefore, job seekers need to know how to pump their CVs with targeted keywords -- like crafting web page content to rank more highly in search engines -- in order to fight back against the tyranny of mediocrity.
Using Unicode characters often breaks display of a word, as in the case of your comment. In this case, it's you who made a "common error".
What if companies stopped making it so d@#$ difficult for good, decent employees to get hired? If companies want the best employees, they will go back to hand scrutinizing resumes instead of leaving it up to machines to do so. Every applicant in the world has caught on to the "keyword" trick. If you depend on that, you'll be missing some very good opportunities to hire more qualified applicants. Stop this lazy practice of letting HR personnel and machines dictate who gets an interview and who doesn't - your businesses are not being served well by this practice and, ultimately, your customers are the ones paying the price.
Hopefully RTF helps avoid the formatting issues of MS Word versions. Is Microsoft listening to avoid version issues?
Convert the Word resume to PDF and don't lock it down.
That way it is portable and fully searchable and the reader can copy all the text he/she wants.
If all you have is a hard copy, get off your duff. Scan it, OCR it and fix the formatting or simply retype it. Your'e looking for a job. Don't be so lazy.
I wouldn't hire you if you gave me an image of a document.
You should always have an up to date electronic copy of your resume handy.
That way it is portable and fully searchable and the reader can copy all the text he/she wants.
If all you have is a hard copy, get off your duff. Scan it, OCR it and fix the formatting or simply retype it. Your'e looking for a job. Don't be so lazy.
I wouldn't hire you if you gave me an image of a document.
You should always have an up to date electronic copy of your resume handy.
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