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The main point of creating his resume with Markdown seems to be the ability to store it in version control, and hold the whole thing in a plain text file. While

The main point of creating his resume with Markdown seems to be the ability to store it in version control, and hold the whole thing in a plain text file. While a resume done in Markdown seems like an interesting idea (and I may end up writing one up just to have a web version of it online), I'd also consider writing one in LaTeX. It's easily storable in version control, and the base file you use to generate the PDF is a plaintext document, which is exactly what he's looking for, and the system is a lot more flexible than Markdown. As an example, my resume can be found at https://github.com/mdwrigh2/resume/raw/master/mwright-resume.pdf https://github.com/mdwrigh2/resume/raw/master/mwright-resume... and the source for it can be found at https://github.com/mdwrigh2/resume/blob/master/mwright-resume.tex https://github.com/mdwrigh2/resume/blob/master/mwright-resum...

icco 16y ago
The biggest issue I've found with latex, is its kind of a pain to write in, and has a higher learning curve. In reality, it is the better choice if you want the final product to be printed, or need more stylistic control.
- mdwrigh2 16y ago
  There is a high learning curve associated with it, but this is your resume. When the person is looking at it, they may have no other information on you as of yet, meaning this right here, is your first impression. If I can spend twice the effort on this, and get an "improvement" of 10 or 20% (I'll leave the choice of units of measurement up to the reader...), in my mind that's worth it. It also doesn't have to be all that difficult. My resume is a style supplied by someone else (it's a pretty standard cv format) with some minor tweaks. Look at the source I linked, and I think you'll agree that it doesn't look all that complicated and probably could be modified with your information, and tweaked here and there to get a fairly unique resume.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > The biggest issue I've found with latex, is its kind of a pain to write in For a big document certainly, but for a CV or résumé you only need a few very basic things, especially if you're using one of the numerous CV classes available out there (in which case you just follow the original template).
  - merijnv 16y ago
    >> The biggest issue I've found with latex, is its kind of a pain to write in >For a big document certainly How do you figure? I switched to using LaTeX for all my documents because Word/OpenOffice were such incredible pains for big documents. The only thing that really causes me a bit of complication are tables and embedding pictures. But then again using either of those in the * Office is an order of magnitude more painful or its downright impossible to accomplish what I want...
    - masklinn 16y ago
      Yes in the long run latex is superior anyway, but for big documents you have a lot of stuff to learn, so the learning curve is steep. For a CV, you only have to learn (/copy and paste) a few directives and remember to save the file as a .tex.
- jedberg 16y ago
  Agreed, but it is worth it for how nice it looks. As someone who looks at a lot of resumes, I appreciate the ones that are made with LaTex. It shows that little bit of extra effort. Also, I make the LaTex file I use for my own resume available so that others can copy it. http://edberg.org/jeremy/Jeremy_Edberg_Resume.tex http://edberg.org/jeremy/Jeremy_Edberg_Resume.tex
itsnotvalid 16y ago
There are numerous examples of using LaTeX for resumes and some templates are available, such as this: http://rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/ http://rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/ And again, LaTex files are still version control friendly (just as your example indicates), so using which is just a personal taste. I am still thinking that markdown is better to be used in web context than in printing, even with the help of CSS. However just a kind reminder, don't put your email address personal phone numbers and residential address as plain text on publicly accessible websites, they are very likely going to be picked up by spammers, etc.
- abraham 16y ago
  Don't obfuscate email address. It doesn't work and is really annoying. http://jasonpriem.com/2009/05/stop-obfuscating-email/ http://jasonpriem.com/2009/05/stop-obfuscating-email/
rlpb 16y ago
I favour plain TeX for a resume. LaTeX is based on the principle of writing structured text telling to tell it what you mean, and letting it deal with the presentation. With a resume, it's worth spending extra time doing the presentation yourself. That said, it does take time to micromanage the presentation. Last time I needed a resume, I was a student and had the time. I don't know what my next resume will be in, or if I'll ever need one again.
davidw 16y ago
LaTeX makes beautiful printed documents, but my experience is that it's more difficult to generate nice HTML. The ideal system would probably do a good job of that as well: how many more people will look at an HTML version rather than a PDF?
- X-Istence 16y ago
  I am a user of open source, as such I have created my resume in HTML and PDF. HTML is the most popular when people visit my website to view my resume and PDF is most popular when people ask me to email my resume to them.
- ionfish 16y ago
  Pandoc [1] does a pretty good job. The issue with HTML is of course that by design it doesn't deal with presentation: that's the job of the presentation layer (i.e. CSS) and the user agent (usually a web browser). PDFs, by contrast, state just how they're meant to look. [1] http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/
- simonista 16y ago
  If you like parentheses, Scribble[1], a tool by the racket guys, does what you're asking for. I haven't used it extensively but the few times I've tried it, it has worked well. Here's an example scribble file[2]. [1]: http://docs.racket-lang.org/scribble/index.html http://docs.racket-lang.org/scribble/index.html [2]: http://git.racket-lang.org/plt/blob/HEAD:/collects/scribblings/scribble/how-to-paper.scrbl http://git.racket-lang.org/plt/blob/HEAD:/collects/scribblin...
trigger 16y ago
This guy published his LaTeX CV template source, http://jblevins.org/projects/cv-template/ http://jblevins.org/projects/cv-template/.
simonista 16y ago
Just a heads up, there's a typo. Under "Operating Systems", distrobutions -> distributions.
- js2 16y ago
  Forked, fixed, pushed, sent pull request. It's hosted on github, why not? :-)
kscaldef 16y ago
I've used XMLResume for years (using Emacs SGML mode to ensure validity when I edit it, and version control, of course). From the XML, I generate HTML, PDF, and plain text. I'm pretty sure you can even generate a Word doc if you wanted. http://kevin.scaldeferri.com/resume/ http://kevin.scaldeferri.com/resume/

icco 16y ago

The biggest issue I've found with latex, is its kind of a pain to write in, and has a higher learning curve. In reality, it is the better choice if you want the final product to be printed, or need more stylistic control.

mdwrigh2 16y ago
There is a high learning curve associated with it, but this is your resume. When the person is looking at it, they may have no other information on you as of yet, meaning this right here, is your first impression. If I can spend twice the effort on this, and get an "improvement" of 10 or 20% (I'll leave the choice of units of measurement up to the reader...), in my mind that's worth it. It also doesn't have to be all that difficult. My resume is a style supplied by someone else (it's a pretty standard cv format) with some minor tweaks. Look at the source I linked, and I think you'll agree that it doesn't look all that complicated and probably could be modified with your information, and tweaked here and there to get a fairly unique resume.
masklinn 16y ago
> The biggest issue I've found with latex, is its kind of a pain to write in For a big document certainly, but for a CV or résumé you only need a few very basic things, especially if you're using one of the numerous CV classes available out there (in which case you just follow the original template).
- merijnv 16y ago
  >> The biggest issue I've found with latex, is its kind of a pain to write in >For a big document certainly How do you figure? I switched to using LaTeX for all my documents because Word/OpenOffice were such incredible pains for big documents. The only thing that really causes me a bit of complication are tables and embedding pictures. But then again using either of those in the * Office is an order of magnitude more painful or its downright impossible to accomplish what I want...
  - masklinn 16y ago
    Yes in the long run latex is superior anyway, but for big documents you have a lot of stuff to learn, so the learning curve is steep. For a CV, you only have to learn (/copy and paste) a few directives and remember to save the file as a .tex.
jedberg 16y ago
Agreed, but it is worth it for how nice it looks. As someone who looks at a lot of resumes, I appreciate the ones that are made with LaTex. It shows that little bit of extra effort. Also, I make the LaTex file I use for my own resume available so that others can copy it. http://edberg.org/jeremy/Jeremy_Edberg_Resume.tex http://edberg.org/jeremy/Jeremy_Edberg_Resume.tex

itsnotvalid 16y ago

There are numerous examples of using LaTeX for resumes and some templates are available, such as this: http://rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/ http://rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/ And again, LaTex files are still version control friendly (just as your example indicates), so using which is just a personal taste. I am still thinking that markdown is better to be used in web context than in printing, even with the help of CSS. However just a kind reminder, don't put your email address personal phone numbers and residential address as plain text on publicly accessible websites, they are very likely going to be picked up by spammers, etc.

abraham 16y ago
Don't obfuscate email address. It doesn't work and is really annoying. http://jasonpriem.com/2009/05/stop-obfuscating-email/ http://jasonpriem.com/2009/05/stop-obfuscating-email/

rlpb 16y ago

I favour plain TeX for a resume. LaTeX is based on the principle of writing structured text telling to tell it what you mean, and letting it deal with the presentation. With a resume, it's worth spending extra time doing the presentation yourself. That said, it does take time to micromanage the presentation. Last time I needed a resume, I was a student and had the time. I don't know what my next resume will be in, or if I'll ever need one again.

davidw 16y ago

LaTeX makes beautiful printed documents, but my experience is that it's more difficult to generate nice HTML. The ideal system would probably do a good job of that as well: how many more people will look at an HTML version rather than a PDF?

X-Istence 16y ago
I am a user of open source, as such I have created my resume in HTML and PDF. HTML is the most popular when people visit my website to view my resume and PDF is most popular when people ask me to email my resume to them.
ionfish 16y ago
Pandoc [1] does a pretty good job. The issue with HTML is of course that by design it doesn't deal with presentation: that's the job of the presentation layer (i.e. CSS) and the user agent (usually a web browser). PDFs, by contrast, state just how they're meant to look. [1] http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/
simonista 16y ago
If you like parentheses, Scribble[1], a tool by the racket guys, does what you're asking for. I haven't used it extensively but the few times I've tried it, it has worked well. Here's an example scribble file[2]. [1]: http://docs.racket-lang.org/scribble/index.html http://docs.racket-lang.org/scribble/index.html [2]: http://git.racket-lang.org/plt/blob/HEAD:/collects/scribblings/scribble/how-to-paper.scrbl http://git.racket-lang.org/plt/blob/HEAD:/collects/scribblin...

trigger 16y ago

This guy published his LaTeX CV template source, http://jblevins.org/projects/cv-template/ http://jblevins.org/projects/cv-template/.

simonista 16y ago

Just a heads up, there's a typo. Under "Operating Systems", distrobutions -> distributions.

js2 16y ago
Forked, fixed, pushed, sent pull request. It's hosted on github, why not? :-)

kscaldef 16y ago

I've used XMLResume for years (using Emacs SGML mode to ensure validity when I edit it, and version control, of course). From the XML, I generate HTML, PDF, and plain text. I'm pretty sure you can even generate a Word doc if you wanted. http://kevin.scaldeferri.com/resume/ http://kevin.scaldeferri.com/resume/