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Ask HN: Plain Text Resumes?

4 points by sdevlin ↗ HN
What are everyone's (especially employers') thoughts on plain text resumes versus word docs or pdfs? I'm in the process of updating my resume and considering this option. I've bounced this idea off of a few people to generally negative reactions, but I can't really figure out why that should be. I know I'd rather receive resumes in plain text. I think it depends a lot on what kind of job you're applying for. But it seems to me that for programmers applying for programming work, plain text should be an accepted (or even preferred) format. Am I missing some reason this shouldn't be so?

5 comments

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bartonfink
I've sent plain text resumes for freelance gigs, and it hasn't been a problem before. Oddly enough, I've gotten more negative comments for PDF resumes than for the .txt resumes.
gharbad
I highly mislike word docs for resumes. It provides an implicit assumption that I use MS Word; which is false. I also don't much like the way they look when they're printed.

PDF is at least a fairly open standard and allows proper formatting with all (reasonable) viewers. If you do use a PDF/doc, make sure you spend a little bit of time working on the formatting of the thing. Or just download a LaTeX template..

Plaintext works fine for reading on a screen, but anything done on paper needs some semblance of typography to it.

Generally speaking I keep a copy of my resume in .tex and .txt format, with appropriate tweaks to each to make it look nice.

sdevlin
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'm going to go with gharbad's suggestion and do plain text combined with a PDF via LaTeX.
kunley
If resumes are gathered and processed by some HR division, it's likely those people will be confused reading plain text. You can please their habits and send a word doc. The same for recruiting agencies for consultants / freelancers.

If it happens that you send resume directly to the technical person, good chances he won't care or even will be more pleased by plain text.

ig1
Your resume is a marketing document and you should treat it as such. Text has the advantage that it's universally supported, but it has the downside that it lacks the formatting tools that allow you to design your CV to highlight key areas.

Remember that someone reading your CV isn't going to read every word of it, they're likely to scan quickly through it looking for key points. While in Doc/PDF format you can use typographical tools to aid this (font size, line width, layout, etc.) in plain text you have far fewer options.

This of course assumes that you can put together a well designed CV, obviously a plain-text CV is going to be better than a CV written in size 20 comic-sans (I've actually seen this).