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Comment by jperras | Hacker News Reader

Any resume that has been compiled to a PDF from LaTeX would score major points in my books. It's not that it requires an incredible amount of skill to do so (not to mention that there are quite a few templates available), but it does show that the applicant cares a bit more about presentation than the average programmer that submits his resume in .doc format.

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What typestting do you need for a resume that Word doesn't provide? I've written thousands of pages in LaTex, and at one point I probably would have written my resume in LaTex. But now that I know Word, I see very little advantage to writing my resume with LaTex (I'm probably a little odd, learning LaTex before Word).

It's not like your resume is likely to have equations or need a lot of cross references in it.

Not to mention, many HR departments, recruiters, etc require resumes (when submitted electronically) in Word .doc(x)? format

It's a signalling mechanism.

Easily gamed then.

Even if it is gamed, it still proves the original point: that "the applicant cares a bit more about presentation than the average programmer that submits his resume in .doc format."

Unless he created it in LaTeX, realized it looked terrible, and decided to opt for Word/Pages instead.

LaTeX's default look is very tired, especially if you spent some time in academia. Every CV/paper/thesis looks the same.

LaTeX is a good crutch if you are complete design antitalent, but the same thing that prevents you from shooting yourself in the foot also prevents you from making something nicer.

My CV progression was:

  HTML -> LaTeX (PDF) -> InDesign (PDF) -> OpenOffice (PDF) / ASCII text

I use the "approved" EU format for my cv. In LaTeX, of course. Wastes a ton of space, but doesn't look anything like a "default" TeX document. But still looks fab.

What about extra points for my resume.tex file that includes the company's logo on the cover page and emits different versions based on whether it's intended for executives (summarized version) or engineers (detailed version) based on how xelatex is invoked? Do I get the job? :-)

A lot of companies and agencies ask for word docs, unfortunately. At least some of them want to edit the files, I don't know the reasons of the others. It seems to have gotten better lately, though (these days I mostly just send PDFs).

But is it worth 3 times as much as founding your own company? ;)

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