Boxes became quite popular when DTP programs came on the market, just because all of a sudden it was easily doable, the same with different colored backgrounds (even if it was just shades of gray).
Generally not a good idea for a simple, b/w, serious layout.
If I remember correctly, even horizontal rules weren't that common back in the days. German/Swiss typography called them "English lines", so I assume they were more common in the UK.
Looks nice. To nit pick, I am a believer that, unless you are a recent college grad, your work experience should come first, before your education. Unless you are applying for a teaching job, or you otherwise want to purposefully highlight your educational achievements, I feel that a few years after graduation, what you did in school is mostly irrelevant.
I would say you're probably right about work experience being much more relevant. However, if you went to a very prestigious school, you might want to put it at the beginning for two reasons.
First, the education section takes up relatively little space, and a good school will quickly get the reader's interest.
Secondly, by the end of your work experience section, the reader has probably formed an opinion of you, and a good school won't do much to recover from a mediocre list of jobs.
Of course, none of this actually affects your qualifications for the job. However, HR people usually see things a bit differently than an engineer would...
I agree with you wrt software jobs, but overall it varies by field. The linked example is someone who is a Phd student, so I'd say it's pretty relevant to be at the top.
On the other hand, if you're a developer and still have your degree at the top of the page after 7-10 years, my gut-check-needle drops into danger zone and while I will read the work experience part, I do it with the knowledge that you think you've wasted all that valuable learning time. This is extra true for people from prestigious schools.
To answer why I do the opposite, I am (still!) working in France, and unfortunately academic achievement and diplomas are more rated than experience, when you are under 30 (which is my case).
When I do a resume that targets the USA, I usually remove the picture and invert those parts.
There's significantly better stuff out there (e.g., http://nitens.org/taraborelli/cvtex). This one's neither clear nor consistent, and a tad ugly to boot.
I might as well take this opportunity to plug resume.rb (https://github.com/mwylde/resume.rb) which allows you to define your resume using a simple Ruby DSL and then render it to various outputs (currently supported are plain-text and PDF via LaTeX). Here's [0] an example ruby file which generates this [1] PDF.
The support for plain text is important. When I applied for my current position, I sent a TeX generated PDF of my resume. When I arrived for my interview, what they had in hand was as if someone had OCRd it, done a "strings" on the result and then pulled it into Word - barely comprehensible and ugly as puke. Of course, I had brought lots of paper copies with me.
We've switched over to LinkedIn's job application feature which just PDFs up your LinkedIn profile and sends it to us when they click on apply on our website. I don't believe there is even a place to attach a normal résumé anymore.
Interesting. I wonder how much of a drop in applicants that gives you. I wouldn't have bothered applying for a job with a company that required a linkedin account.
My resume has been in HTML since the late 90s. Nobody seems to be asking for .doc anymore, and I've never seen anyone ask for another format unless they were asking for plain text.
I used to keep my resume in TeX. I don't anymore. I just use a simple format in Word. PDF is fair, but most of the IT job market infrastructure is based around dealing with word docs & electronic copies so frankly the appearance isn't that important (other than basic legibility). I found it much easier to get work once I bit the bullet and move my resume into a word doc.
I'm seriously considering dumping my TeX version for something else. It's just too fiddly to adjust simple formatting. I'd like to use HTML, but I need more print-specific control.
I was only half-way serious when suggesting postscript. Postscript is a nice format that you can write by hand. And it does meet your "need [for] more print-specific control."
Since you are sensible you don't want to write postscript by hand, but I don't know of any tools that help you produce better postscript than pdf.
(For technical reasons postscript is the superior format though. PDF is a prematurely optimized postscript. pdf-files usually have a smaller file size than ps files, but .ps.gz easily beats pdf, and you can change it with your favorite editor if you want.)
I switched from LaTeX to reStructredText recently. While obviously not as powerful, it makes it much easier to edit. GitHub evens displays it semi-nicely for free.
I used to spend hours working on my resume in LaTeX, under the belief that it would buy me geek cred from employers who could recognize the typesetting. Not one person ever noticed it and the hassle from recruiters that wanted a Word doc finally motivated me to switch to Word. Sad but that's the way it goes.
As a counterpoint, I've recently had two interviewers recognize (and comment) on me using TeX because they recognized Computer Modern. One commented that I should have typed '\latex' instead of just 'latex' (I agreed of course, but mentioned that I didn't want to be too flashy). I got offers from both.
I don't use recruiters, preferring to rely on personal connections, but would they really balk that much at a PDF resume?
I think that discovering which recruiters will hassle you for Word files is a feature, not a bug.
There is no good reason for them to require Word that doesn't, ultimately, come down to them either a) being too lazy to cut and paste into a database, or b) wanting to "improve" your CV before passing it on.
I'm sure I don't know what you are talking about ;)
This plus the links in the comments are a great starting up point for someone looking to do this for the first time, something I wish I had years ago when I started.
This is awesome! We run a resume grading website (http://rezscore.com ) and would love to implement this, could you help us? Email jen /AT/ rezscore \DOT\ com
once done with your resume/cv, do us a favor and try it with our resume analyzer - it'll tell you a lot of things about the quality/content of your resume (and other things you might have missed). it's free, and automated.
Props to you for using LaTeX! I too trod the road to CV perfection, from the early unwashed days of MS Word (bah!), to HTML (blah!), LaTeX (shucks!), XML (arrgh!) and finally to ReST (hooray!).
Sadly no one cared; recruiters wanted MS Word or RTF and employers valued beauty in phrasing over beauty of typesetting and so I hired a CV writer and stuck to Open Office / Google Docs.
The (negative) "picky flag" says more about you or the company that you represent than the person applying.
Being picky about your tools and what you produce should be a positive sign. It shows that you care. It doesn't say anything about how flexible the person is.
I meant `sensible' purely in the technical sense. Postscript is superior to pdf. pdf is basically a stripped down postscript in binary format as a premature size optimization. ps.gz is usually smaller than the equivalent pdf.
I wouldn't send out postscript files to people I don't know, since you can't assume that people are able to read them.
I assume your comment was purely about the social point of view? Or are there technical reasons for foregoing postscript documents you may want to print? (Especially reasons that didn't exist 30 years ago.) Thanks!
I would say my comment was purely about the "user-friendly" point of view, which overlaps technical and social. The right answer, speaking from a technical worldview, is always at least related to what is user-friendly. Technically superior is the same as technically worthless if nobody can use it.
I used ps (in favour of pdf) whenever I can get away with it. Especially if I am the consumer of the data and can decide which format somebody else prepares for me. E.g. when downloading scientific paper there's often a .ps version.
I wouldn't want to force other people (especially non-geeks) to learn about data formats they don't care about. And after all a pdf is still better than MS Word.
I'd be happy to get into that first category and then prove you wrong on the flag in an interview, unless step three is the trash...
I personally think it is more about using the right tool for the job than picky-ness. I like the way TeX looks and there are some things that you can do very easily (and maintainably) compared to OO/Word.
Are you sure you have enough data to make 1) a fact ?
I doubt that anyone but very, very few, writes resumes in TeX. LaTeX, yes some. TeX ? Nah.
Someone in command of LaTeX, can make a CV look essentially like whatever they want, so 1) is perhaps not as "usually" as you think.
Regarding 2), what, if anything, do you conclude about an applicant's level of geekiness if you believe you have identified their resume as having been written in Word ?
If you really use this strategy and you are a hiring manager in an area related to technology or computing/programming, someone should seriously consider if it is to their advantage having you involved in the hiring process.
Perhaps it's just the font, but this and most other Latex resumes scream "I was made with Latex!" For some jobs, that might buy some geek cred, but I wanted to make mine less Latexy. What do you think? (Disclaimer: content is crappy and outdated)
I really do not like the italic text. Immediately thought of cheap newspaper classifieds. Maybe just not make that italic? It is already lighter than the main headlines so it might be different enough.
Monospace for "internet things" is geeky, looked weird.
Lose the "(primary)" at the cell number unless you add another number.
Bullet points maybe?
"company." as single word in a line is sub-optimal.
"development teams of 2-5." -> "development teams of 2-5 people."
91 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] threadThis is also great if you are just getting into LaTeX: http://tobi.oetiker.ch/lshort/lshort.pdf
Generally not a good idea for a simple, b/w, serious layout.
If I remember correctly, even horizontal rules weren't that common back in the days. German/Swiss typography called them "English lines", so I assume they were more common in the UK.
There is not in existence a page with a rule on it that cannot be instantly and obviously improved by taking the rule out.
Thanks a lot :)
I'm interested in hearing counter arguments.
First, the education section takes up relatively little space, and a good school will quickly get the reader's interest.
Secondly, by the end of your work experience section, the reader has probably formed an opinion of you, and a good school won't do much to recover from a mediocre list of jobs.
Of course, none of this actually affects your qualifications for the job. However, HR people usually see things a bit differently than an engineer would...
On the other hand, if you're a developer and still have your degree at the top of the page after 7-10 years, my gut-check-needle drops into danger zone and while I will read the work experience part, I do it with the knowledge that you think you've wasted all that valuable learning time. This is extra true for people from prestigious schools.
To answer why I do the opposite, I am (still!) working in France, and unfortunately academic achievement and diplomas are more rated than experience, when you are under 30 (which is my case).
When I do a resume that targets the USA, I usually remove the picture and invert those parts.
EDIT: Embarrassingly, I seem to have lost my bullets. Have to dig back in and find them.
I think basically all latex users have been passing around variants of the same GPL resume template for ten or fifteen years now. :)
[0] https://github.com/mwylde/resume.rb/blob/master/example/my_r... [1] https://github.com/mwylde/resume.rb/raw/master/example/my_re....
You can see a sample TeX file at http://polibyte.com/files/resume-20110908.tex and the PDF output at http://polibyte.com/files/resume-20110908.pdf
http://www.biostat.harvard.edu/~paciorek/computingTips/Latex...
I was only half-way serious when suggesting postscript. Postscript is a nice format that you can write by hand. And it does meet your "need [for] more print-specific control."
Since you are sensible you don't want to write postscript by hand, but I don't know of any tools that help you produce better postscript than pdf.
(For technical reasons postscript is the superior format though. PDF is a prematurely optimized postscript. pdf-files usually have a smaller file size than ps files, but .ps.gz easily beats pdf, and you can change it with your favorite editor if you want.)
Here you can download my archive: http://uploading.com/files/3c95c534/resumes.tar.gz
It contains pdf and tex versions of the resumes of following people; elizabrock, mikepark, pavpanchekha, rlipman, rpetti, stuhood
I hope that this archive may help you guys.
I just print to PDF from there, and attach the result.
https://github.com/charleso/resume http://cv.charleso.org/
For HTML5, you could include HTML5 features like microdata or use some of the HTML5 tags. The design though is great - very clean!
I personally author my resume in XML and transform it into various formats using XSLT.
[1] https://github.com/sxtxixtxcxh/resume [2] http://nanoc.stoneship.org/
I don't use recruiters, preferring to rely on personal connections, but would they really balk that much at a PDF resume?
There is no good reason for them to require Word that doesn't, ultimately, come down to them either a) being too lazy to cut and paste into a database, or b) wanting to "improve" your CV before passing it on.
This plus the links in the comments are a great starting up point for someone looking to do this for the first time, something I wish I had years ago when I started.
http://www.indeed.com/resumes
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/712576/thomas_shaddox_resume.pdf
(the content is still from college days when I had no real experience, so please don't judge the content)
Yours looks nice, and has less of the LaTex feel to it:)
I hadn't thought to add example output.
http://www.twentypeople.com/public/u/resumeanalyzer
Sadly no one cared; recruiters wanted MS Word or RTF and employers valued beauty in phrasing over beauty of typesetting and so I hired a CV writer and stuck to Open Office / Google Docs.
Hope it works out for you though!
I like the modernCV format a lot, I'll likely try to crib some features from there.
1) I can usually tell that you wrote your resume in TeX
2) I then classify you immediately in the "advanced geeks" category, with a "probably hard to work with because is picky" flag...
Being picky about your tools and what you produce should be a positive sign. It shows that you care. It doesn't say anything about how flexible the person is.
I wouldn't send out postscript files to people I don't know, since you can't assume that people are able to read them.
I assume your comment was purely about the social point of view? Or are there technical reasons for foregoing postscript documents you may want to print? (Especially reasons that didn't exist 30 years ago.) Thanks!
I wouldn't want to force other people (especially non-geeks) to learn about data formats they don't care about. And after all a pdf is still better than MS Word.
I personally think it is more about using the right tool for the job than picky-ness. I like the way TeX looks and there are some things that you can do very easily (and maintainably) compared to OO/Word.
I doubt that anyone but very, very few, writes resumes in TeX. LaTeX, yes some. TeX ? Nah.
Someone in command of LaTeX, can make a CV look essentially like whatever they want, so 1) is perhaps not as "usually" as you think.
Regarding 2), what, if anything, do you conclude about an applicant's level of geekiness if you believe you have identified their resume as having been written in Word ?
If you really use this strategy and you are a hiring manager in an area related to technology or computing/programming, someone should seriously consider if it is to their advantage having you involved in the hiring process.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/712576/thomas_shaddox_resume.pdf
Monospace for "internet things" is geeky, looked weird.
Lose the "(primary)" at the cell number unless you add another number.
Bullet points maybe?
"company." as single word in a line is sub-optimal.
"development teams of 2-5." -> "development teams of 2-5 people."
"Email" -> "E-Mail", I am not sure about this.
You silly Amer. wi. al. your abbr. in addr. :)