16 ms·

Show HN: I made a resume generator for developers

265 points by vilvadot 7y ago

grogenaut 7y ago
You say "For one year" but you don't say what that means. I don't know if it's avilable for download for a year, that it keeps syncing for a year, or if you retain license to the design and I can use it without paying you for one year even if I say make a PDF of it and edit that going forward. So some terms and conditions, as annoying as they are, would be helpful, since I don't actually know what I'm buying here. I think you do know.
vilvadot 7y ago
Hi OP here! I made this tool because I always feel the pain when having to update my resume as well as my friends ones. Since I tend to keep my Github pretty updated my idea was having a way to generate a professional looking resume getting the information from my profile (personal data, website, tags, repos, etc...) the fastest possible, without having to tinker much with the design or anything. I haven't had the opportunity to test it with many people yet, so any feedback is more than appreciated.
aloisdg 7y ago
Is is compatible with https://jsonresume.org/schema/ https://jsonresume.org/schema/ ? Do you plan to release the source code?
- vilvadot 7y ago
  I didn't know that existed, but it looks REALLY nice. It would be cool to allow for users to signup with regular email/password and let them import their own json. I won't release the project per se, but I do plan on striping out all the business logic and release a full stack SaaS scaffolding (Node + React) of the project with the basics (dockerized dev enviroment, a CRUD, authorization, deploy ready etc...) for anyone to build a product like this. this. edit: typo.
- api_or_ipa 7y ago
  JSON Resume needs more contributors, pretty badly. It's a great project, but it's languished a bit over the years and some tooling have broken. I encourage anyone who uses it to throw a little time into the codebase. It's not that hard/complex of a project.
eof 7y ago
Is this different from / compatible with JSONResume?
- vilvadot 7y ago
  See above, didn't know that existed but now I'm considering integrating it.
stockkid 7y ago
Thanks for sharing. Could you help me see clearly the value offered by your product? In my case, I have a word document that I only occasionally export to pdf when I'm searching for new opportunities, let's say once every two years. Updating is not too much of a hassle for me because I end up just having to add a few lines summing up my new experience since last time. Am I missing something, or is everyone doing it differently?
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Yeah, while researchign for this I found it's what a lot of people tend to do, so don't worry :P Other users (like me) tend to look for a more polished design than that of what MS word/Google Docs etc... offer, but it is perfectly normal, this use case might not be relevant for you.
sundayedition 7y ago
I haven't tried this yet, but I like your pricing model more than the others I've looked at. I tried cake resume a while ago and while it was nice-ish, they wanted to sign up for a $7.95-$15.95/mo recurring charge (I feel like it was even closer to $20 a last time I looked?)
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Yeah, I gave it a lot of thought, because being realistic who needs to build resumes every month? I think having a 1 year access without recurring subscription is a nice way to be able to use the product (including updates) and not having to charge for something weird like single use/downloads.
geggam 7y ago
Pretty sure you show me one of these and its file 13'd immediately. Take the time to think about your career and highlight what fits the job I am asking you to do.
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Any feedback on how to make resumes more relevant is very welcome. That is an area I would love to improve.
  - geggam 7y ago
    What have you done that is relevant to the job you are asking to do ? To get past HR load up on recent buzzwords but tailor the resume to suit the job is the #1 thing I look for. Any hint of not putting in the effort and I assume that is your work style. No way I want someone who cant put in the effort to get the job. You know they will put in less when they do get it.
    - vilvadot 7y ago
      Thanks. I guess it depends on what information each one presents on their resume then, but I see your point.
    - vilvadot 7y ago
      BTW forgot to ask, in order to be able to present a resume in the way you find most relevant. Do you feel something missing that my tool might need?
      - geggam 7y ago
        Let me say you building the automation would be a skill set / mindset I look for. Users of your tool I would avoid as I want someone who is lazy but works really hard at it :)
    - sylk 7y ago
      My resume shines much better than this. He'd need to integrate linkedin to get a much shinier profile...
leetrout 7y ago
Just an FYI if you didn't know this- stackoverflow.com has something _similar_. They have the concept of a developer story with the option to link to two different web versions as well as generating a PDF for you (no frills). e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/cv/leetrout https://stackoverflow.com/cv/leetrout Looks like you've definitely put more effort in to the styles and the thumbnails look nice! I would love to see a small gallery of designs! I'm -1 on photos on resume since it opens the door to a lot of bias (unconscious or not) so I hope you offer a lot options without photos / icons.
- thefrog 7y ago
  I think in that way a picture helps - if someone is biased by only looking at a picture, that's a job you don't want.
  - recursive 7y ago
    In most cases, they will be biased by the presence of a picture regardless of its contents.
  - robjan 7y ago
    In what way does it help? All it does is change your first impression from a more objective to subjective one.
  - sezna 7y ago
    This is not usually the case. Initial resume reviews are often done by HR, some algorithm, or at least somebody who is not who you will actually be working with on the day-to-day. It is incredibly difficult to root out all of the biases in the job application process and even automated attempts have failed[1]. It is best to avoid any opportunity for bias to even enter the system. To say that you're okay being rejected from a job due to your appearance because you wouldn't want that job anyway is defeatist and hurts the cause of those who are truly disadvantaged and would very much like to be employed. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automatio...
user_50123890 7y ago
the problems with resume generators are * privacy: if it's not client-side only, how do I know you're not saving all my data and selling it to advertisers recruiters spammers etc? * popularity: a random recruiter pulls up two applications and they both have the exactly same template. this is probably a bad thing. best case scenario you become less unique and more forgettable, worst case scenario they think you're a liar that has plagiarized the resume from somewhere and the contents aren't correct
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Completely see your point in the privacy aspect, but it is really difficult to offer a good user experience with a project like this without storing data. I don't even consider selling data as part of a business model for my projects but I understand that is opaque to the user and not everyone is like this. On the second argument, I assume recruiters are seeing tons of resumes presented in the same package daily. I don't think this will affect negatively to the applicants. Hopefully this starts becoming a problem and I get to work and design 100 more templates for variety :)
  - avaika 7y ago
    Moreover, as a person who participated in hiring a lot, a unique design for every CV isn't something I'd be happy with. The more it unified, the easier to scan the paper for the things I'm looking for.
    - jahlove 7y ago
      Which is a point against these fancy templates. Even if its super popular, it's still not as popular as a boring word document. The only case for these fancy resumes is for graphic designers in my view, who should be designing the resume themselves, obviously.
    - udayrddy 7y ago
      (because you being a recruiter/recruited a lot) Out-of-context, shamelessly plugging https://nextRound.ml https://nextRound.ml to consider your feedback. To keep the thread precise to the OP, drop an email at uday@notyce.me (just in case you want to feedback) .
richeyryan 7y ago
For me, integration with Linkedin would be much more powerful than integration with Github. My Github is full of my experiments and side projects with ReasonML, OCaml and Clojure. My day job is all about building React applications. Also, a better preview of the non-free themes would be nice but I could imagine you are concerned with people extracting the CV without paying.
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Yeah, Linkedin was planned, until I discovered they don't provide the profile via API unless you are an aproved developer :( No, I'm not concerned at all with that! There is a full sample preview of each template once you login. I guess I need to put it in the landing to?
- kaushikt 7y ago
  LinkedIn used to have their Resume builder under LinkedIn Labs. They shut it now. It was pretty cool. As of now, you can download your profile in PDF format with no choices of templates.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  Another data point: your existing CV. Most people have one. Might not be good, but I'm sure some it's content could be used.
phoe-krk 7y ago
Do you use {La,}TeX for the resumes? If yes, do you make it possible to download the files in TeX format for your paying users, so they may be hand-tweaked by them?
- vilvadot 7y ago
  No sorry, I have no experience working with Latex
  - phoe-krk 7y ago
    OK - if your resumes are not made with TeX, then the rest of my question is moot. Thanks for answering!
rileyt 7y ago
Photos should not be included on resumes sent to most American companies. They are a huge source of bias in the the hiring process and will either be rejected or have the photo removed immediately.
- vilvadot 7y ago
  See below, there are templates without picture to chose from.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  But there are markets where they are expected. In Germany, your resume has a good chance of being discarded if it doesn't display a photo. That has to be kept in mind when making tools like this. They seem to have templates both with and without photos.
  - robohoe 7y ago
    Is there a reason why a photo should be included?
    - mfoy_ 7y ago
      I mean... other than the obvious ones? (i.e. the same reasons which are why North American companies usually don't or can't request a photo...)
      - otterley 7y ago
        I can't think of an obvious reason why anyone -- other than someone being hired specifically for their looks such as a model or an actor -- should include their photo along with their curriculum vitae. What "obvious" reasons are you thinking of? To prove they're not a bot or a house pet?
        mfoy_ 7y ago
        To quote Drawn Together's Foxxy Love: "This whole test is racially biased! Question one: 'What SPF lotion would you use if your were going down to the polo grounds, fellow Klan member?'"
ItsOfficial 7y ago
This is really cool; I love the slick interface! Some of your templates look vaguely familiar though. https://realporthub.herokuapp.com https://realporthub.herokuapp.com *Edited for positivity. This is legit cool.
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Thanks for the love! I designed the templates taking inspiration on what friends showed me, what found online as well as my previous resumes. To be completely honest its the first time I see that website! But I can see how the black sidebar one looks similar, but they all use pretty common heavily used design patterns.
  - ItsOfficial 7y ago
    Definitely! There's only so much room to maneuver on resume layouts as it is. One of the, if no THE, most important things I found was the machine readability of a resume. We could build generators that spit beautiful resumes all day but they wouldn't ever get in front of a human to care.
    - vilvadot 7y ago
      Wow, didn't think about that. I'm not familiar with so automated hiring processes but I guess that is a big concern. Did you find out why? layout, text style? they need a specific template?
      - ItsOfficial 7y ago
        Yeah, I wasn't and didn't either! I love playing around in Adobe Illustrator and so built my resumes in there. I spent DAYS and WEEKS crafting what I thought were a beautiful, icon rich, intuitive, apple-of-my-eye resumes. 250+ applications later the only time I ever got any response was from one or two small operations where it was a human manually reviewing submissions. Turns out HR/recruiting suites that companies use aren't so hot on parsing, classifying, and tagging image based PDF resumes. Haha, who knew, right? Finally a friend turned me on to LaTex and I had GREAT success with that. This made a ton of sense: what could be more machine readable than something built out using markup elements, tags, and IDs that explicitly do all that classifying work for the programs already. So yeah, huge take-away: when your site constructs the resume if you're using HTML and then converting out to PDF (what we did on PortHub) make sure your HTML is verbose and explicit, even if it doesn't get displayed "on page".
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tabtab 7y ago
Does anyone remember the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator? It's not up anymore, but here is a rough clone: https://lotta.se/mission-statement-generator https://lotta.se/mission-statement-generator Click the button to automatically generate a new mission statement.
tambourine_man 7y ago
Is it possible to input the information yourself? I don't use github all that much.
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Except the repos, once you log in everything is editable by hand. You lose the speed boost, but you have the option yes :)
drKarl 7y ago
Years ago I was using a Word document for my CV but every time I wanted to update the style it was a pain. I found a command line tool that I have been using for years which allows to decouple data (json) and presentation (web technologies based themes, I created my own theme). The name is hackmyresume (https://github.com/hacksalot/HackMyResume https://github.com/hacksalot/HackMyResume) or fluentcv (https://github.com/fluentdesk/FluentCV https://github.com/fluentdesk/FluentCV). I'm afraid it's no longer maintained but I still use it. It supports JsonResume (JRS) and also its own format FRESH. It outputs to multiple formats including word and pdf.
brianpgordon 7y ago
Just a suggestion: I think it would be a good idea to showcase the variety of your available designs up-front, without requiring a signup. I imagine that a big reservation people will have is that they won't want their resume to be recognizable as "one of the three templates offered by that resume generator." You don't have to show a full PDF sample, but just a gallery showing that there is a large crowd of designs one can blend into would go a long way.
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Thanks for the tip, some people seem to think the same, so that definetly goes into the TO-DO list.
- TenJack 7y ago
  I agree. I'm not going to sign up without seeing a sample.
  - vilvadot 7y ago
    there is a sample on the landing page!
    - ribrars 7y ago
      This is a good example of where UX means a different thing to the user than to the developer. Just because it's available on another page doesn't mean the customer is going to take the time to go figure that out. Take these criticisms graciously and learn how your user's use your software it's going to improve your products immensely.
      - brianpgordon 7y ago
        He's pointing out that there's a link to a full-size PDF sample of one of the templates on the landing page if you scroll down a little bit.
    - Osiris 7y ago
djsumdog 7y ago
A friend of mine had a graphical resume she made in Illustrator and it inspired me to learn Illustrator myself and make this: https://penguindreams.org/files/2018-SumitKhanna-Resume.pdf https://penguindreams.org/files/2018-SumitKhanna-Resume.pdf I like it, and it's got me some good roles (probably also kept me from some roles as I'm sure some threw it in the trash thinking it smelled of marketing rubbish; but I still like it so whateves), but it's also a pain to update. I looked at adapting HackMyResume (listed in the comments) and got somethings into the standard JSON format, but I wanted to keep my timeline and getting it to work programmatically was way more difficult than I thought. Someone provided this answer on StackExchange for Laytex, but I never got things to lineup correctly and sorta gave up: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/183046/how-do-i-develop-a-complex-time-line https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/183046/how-do-i-deve... Every time I think about doing it programmatically, I start down a path, get frustrated and realize I need something now, and end up just updating the old one in Illustrator. I hesitate to use a tool like this since mine looks unique and don't want anyone to recognize it comes from a standard template. It's still pretty neat though and I like the idea of allowing a preview with a watermark as a means to attempt to monetize it.
- btbuildem 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing that! Part of my job involves data visualization, and what better way to flash those skills on a resume then making custom graphics with my work experience as a dataset. Thank you for the inspiration.
- mfbx9da4 7y ago
  I see you did great on the first page and then ran out of time
  - spraak 7y ago
    The second page is more likely to be a traditional style resume with the same information as the first page
    - sellersam 7y ago
aurbano 7y ago
I use LaTeX for my resume and it has been the best experience so far. My content is super simple, and technically I could change the format whenever (although I'd have to learn LaTeX to modify the template, but I'm sure it's not too difficult). Nowadays I use Overleaf's online tex editor, so I don't even need tex installed to update it.
- sezna 7y ago
  Would you be interested in sharing your template? I used to use TeX, but the available templates never interested me, and I didn't have the time to DiY a good one.
  - twothumbsup 7y ago
    I use one of these templates: https://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/ https://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/
    - sezna 7y ago
      Thanks. These look good.
  - ItsOfficial 7y ago
    I've used this template as a starting point with solid success. https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/cv-chandan/vgynfrhcvsfx https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/cv-chandan/vgynfrhc...
rgbimbochamp 7y ago
everyone just use latexresu.me bye
CountHackulus 7y ago
Random bug report, long names overflow into the skills section. Fun tool, though I personally prefer making my own website with print css that is the resume itself (with a PDF copy).
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Thanks, noting the bug :)
johnwheeler 7y ago
I wasn't expecting much, but I downloaded the sample, and it's definitely something I'd be interested in. Made me think, "Oh yeah, you should do it that way"
vs4vijay 7y ago
I used Resumake.io (https://resumake.io/ https://resumake.io/), very good service, has option to export in LaTeX, PDF and JSON as well.
cr0sh 7y ago
Quick comment - I haven't gone thru the entire site, etc - so maybe you are already aware. I saw the free vs paid options - and the paid being "$30" and I was asking myself "$30 for...how long?" - so I went back (because I didn't want to make a fool of myself before I commented) and read it carefully...and..."oh - for one year of access" Ok - that's fair - but I want to suggest that you make that part a bit more prominent on that card, because if I missed it I am sure others will as well. I don't think the price is unfair (seems reasonable out the gate) - but knowing the terms of how long you get access for that price shouldn't be something you have to search a bit for.
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Thank you cr0sh, that's great feedback. Actually at first it was very evident $30/year, but I removed it in the last minute because it seemed like a suscription (which is not). Definetly going to make that thing stand out more.
rnotaro 7y ago
Is there literally no ways to delete my user account and data ???
- vilvadot 7y ago
  sorry, not currently. I should have added that option. By now please send an email to contact@bytevitae.com and I will delete it for you. Sorry for that.
udayrddy 7y ago
So, I'm looking into your sample resume at https://bytevitae.com/cv/bytevitae_sample.pdf https://bytevitae.com/cv/bytevitae_sample.pdf. Unsure, if I understood "OPEN SOURCE" section means. Also, when I tried to copy your previous company name "Influencity" it is copied as "Inbuencity". Care to see what I did with this resume using https://notyce.me https://notyce.me? I validated it to check the resume's suitability in job market. Have a look https://ibb.co/sqqQ1yb https://ibb.co/sqqQ1yb
- vilvadot 7y ago
  Wow, that "Inbuencity" bug is a weird one O_o, just tried it myself and same happens. Don't even know how it is possible, something about the font maybe? Open source represents open source contributions (aka repos). Well that looks cool and apparently its spot on!
  - teddyh 7y ago
    The two characters “f” and “l” are, when typeset, frequently combined into the “ﬂ” ligature. Probably, this is what happens here, and some combination of bugs causes the ﬂ ligature not to be correctly translated back into “fl” when copied.
  - udayrddy 7y ago
    Yay, on that "its spot on" although I do not understand on 16.6% Mobile App developer. Not sure what AI looked in there. btw, you may need to look into https://notyce.me/resources/sometimes-its-not-you.html https://notyce.me/resources/sometimes-its-not-you.html tells on the font types you should consider.
app4soft 7y ago
Is it possible make offline app based on your "resume generator for developers"?
- vilvadot 7y ago
  what do you mean?
JDiculous 7y ago
I respect the hustle, but why do I have to create an account and login with GitHub to see anything? I recently had to rewrite my resume and found it surprisingly difficult to find any decent templates, so I created my own in Google Docs https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LoPO2A_mZXJTpn90K27FPKU3sdnrS_r7mXbic9HUSDw/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LoPO2A_mZXJTpn90K27FPKU3... . Anyone reading this is welcome to use it.
- jordan801 7y ago
  I made mine as an SPA with Vuejs and some CSS libraries, then converted it to PDF with the print option. It felt appropriate. Material.io style resume, bam! I used it for the first time last week, and I am on to the second round of interviews. [ When all else fails, use your dev skills ]
  - ficklepickle 7y ago
    Thanks for mentioning this. I was doing the exact same thing, also with Vue, but never finished it. Your comment inspired me to pick it up again.
    - jordan801 7y ago
      The only major problem I had was the pdf conversion cutting off the styled container. I fixed it by adding an excessive top margin. So just be aware and check the formatting before you ship. :D
gregjotau 7y ago
Maybe a bit off topic, but a targeted cover letter for the specific job you are applying for is also important. I have a template in Latex that I have used on all jobs after university :) http://blog.gregjotau.com/job/2018/06/05/cover_letter_template.html http://blog.gregjotau.com/job/2018/06/05/cover_letter_templa...
ribrars 7y ago
I like this. Small bug: dates for "experience" are showing up incorrect when rendering to pdf.
johnisgood 7y ago
Without having checked it: 1) Does it use templates? If so, resumes will probably look similar to each other, and not stand out from their competition. Is this assumption incorrect? 2) In my opinion, a developer using a resume generator sounds kind of unprofessional or even lazy ("highest quality developer resume in less than 5 minutes"), in contrast to say, using LaTeX (without templates).
- ken 7y ago
  Isn’t LaTeX just a set of macros? Is that not “lazy” compared to using plain TeX? I would not think less of an engineer who used standard components.
zelphirkalt 7y ago
The website after clicking "get started for free" does not work. It is only a black white page. After looking at the source, I can see the problem. It is _JS only_. The JS is uglified as well, so I am not trusting it. You could have at least made some effort to include a noscript tag. The website also looks like it is hiding functionality behind a registration, instead of letting me try right away, but I cannot confirm this, as the website does not work, as stated above.
sabrehagen 7y ago
I love the idea and simplicity, but if you want conversion to paid plans you must make the paid templates previewable before purchase to establish trust in the investment before the user purchases.
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somada141 7y ago
For a while I've been building my resume(s) by using a LaTeX template (specifically [0]) and copy-pasting data from my LinkedIn profile which I keep fairly up-to-date. It's worked pretty well for me especially when I had to put together academic resumes for which I could just add my publication through the standard LaTeX bibliography practices. I've toyed with the idea of making a resume generator SaaS where the user would enter their LinkedIn URL which my app would scrape and use it to populate different LaTeX templates rendered server-side into PDFs (for free) while offering some sort of editor or the raw LaTeX (in a premium version) where the user could apply edits. While AFAIK scraping LinkedIn was deemed lawful in some previous court case [1] I fear it would be a hard sell. Wonder what kinda trouble I would run into. [0] https://www.sharelatex.com/templates/cv-or-resume/fancy-cv https://www.sharelatex.com/templates/cv-or-resume/fancy-cv [1] http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/09/09/17-16783.pdf http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/09/09/17...
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iamsb 7y ago
Good site and design. My honest reservation about using drastically different resume formats is - resume parsers. Most recruiting agencies, large companies using some form resume parsing to aid in filtering out candidates. Not sure if your formats will get parsed correctly.
robbdimitrov 7y ago
Good idea with nice design and landing page. What’s missing in my opinion are some samples (2-3 generated resumes). The other thing is the pricing. There are CV generators in the $10-$20 range, so maybe adding a “normal” version at 10-15 dollars and maxed out version at 25-30 would capture more price-sensitive users. The copy regarding the price is perfect, but additional price levels may bring more users.
craftoman 7y ago
You made an email "feeder", ready to suck every mail from any developer and sell the data back to some marketing company.
dplgk 7y ago
Where'd you get the illustration on the landing page from?

265 points by vilvadot 7y ago

You say "For one year" but you don't say what that means. I don't know if it's avilable for download for a year, that it keeps syncing for a year, or if you retain license to the design and I can use it without paying you for one year even if I say make a PDF of it and edit that going forward. So some terms and conditions, as annoying as they are, would be helpful, since I don't actually know what I'm buying here. I think you do know.

vilvadot 7y ago

Hi OP here! I made this tool because I always feel the pain when having to update my resume as well as my friends ones. Since I tend to keep my Github pretty updated my idea was having a way to generate a professional looking resume getting the information from my profile (personal data, website, tags, repos, etc...) the fastest possible, without having to tinker much with the design or anything. I haven't had the opportunity to test it with many people yet, so any feedback is more than appreciated.

aloisdg 7y ago

Is is compatible with https://jsonresume.org/schema/ https://jsonresume.org/schema/ ? Do you plan to release the source code?

vilvadot 7y ago
I didn't know that existed, but it looks REALLY nice. It would be cool to allow for users to signup with regular email/password and let them import their own json. I won't release the project per se, but I do plan on striping out all the business logic and release a full stack SaaS scaffolding (Node + React) of the project with the basics (dockerized dev enviroment, a CRUD, authorization, deploy ready etc...) for anyone to build a product like this. this. edit: typo.
api_or_ipa 7y ago
JSON Resume needs more contributors, pretty badly. It's a great project, but it's languished a bit over the years and some tooling have broken. I encourage anyone who uses it to throw a little time into the codebase. It's not that hard/complex of a project.

eof 7y ago

Is this different from / compatible with JSONResume?

vilvadot 7y ago
See above, didn't know that existed but now I'm considering integrating it.

stockkid 7y ago

Thanks for sharing. Could you help me see clearly the value offered by your product? In my case, I have a word document that I only occasionally export to pdf when I'm searching for new opportunities, let's say once every two years. Updating is not too much of a hassle for me because I end up just having to add a few lines summing up my new experience since last time. Am I missing something, or is everyone doing it differently?

vilvadot 7y ago
Yeah, while researchign for this I found it's what a lot of people tend to do, so don't worry :P Other users (like me) tend to look for a more polished design than that of what MS word/Google Docs etc... offer, but it is perfectly normal, this use case might not be relevant for you.

sundayedition 7y ago

I haven't tried this yet, but I like your pricing model more than the others I've looked at. I tried cake resume a while ago and while it was nice-ish, they wanted to sign up for a $7.95-$15.95/mo recurring charge (I feel like it was even closer to $20 a last time I looked?)

vilvadot 7y ago
Yeah, I gave it a lot of thought, because being realistic who needs to build resumes every month? I think having a 1 year access without recurring subscription is a nice way to be able to use the product (including updates) and not having to charge for something weird like single use/downloads.

geggam 7y ago

Pretty sure you show me one of these and its file 13'd immediately. Take the time to think about your career and highlight what fits the job I am asking you to do.

vilvadot 7y ago
Any feedback on how to make resumes more relevant is very welcome. That is an area I would love to improve.
- geggam 7y ago
  What have you done that is relevant to the job you are asking to do ? To get past HR load up on recent buzzwords but tailor the resume to suit the job is the #1 thing I look for. Any hint of not putting in the effort and I assume that is your work style. No way I want someone who cant put in the effort to get the job. You know they will put in less when they do get it.
  - vilvadot 7y ago
    Thanks. I guess it depends on what information each one presents on their resume then, but I see your point.
  - vilvadot 7y ago
    BTW forgot to ask, in order to be able to present a resume in the way you find most relevant. Do you feel something missing that my tool might need?
    - geggam 7y ago
      Let me say you building the automation would be a skill set / mindset I look for. Users of your tool I would avoid as I want someone who is lazy but works really hard at it :)
  - sylk 7y ago
    My resume shines much better than this. He'd need to integrate linkedin to get a much shinier profile...

leetrout 7y ago

Just an FYI if you didn't know this- stackoverflow.com has something _similar_. They have the concept of a developer story with the option to link to two different web versions as well as generating a PDF for you (no frills). e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/cv/leetrout https://stackoverflow.com/cv/leetrout Looks like you've definitely put more effort in to the styles and the thumbnails look nice! I would love to see a small gallery of designs! I'm -1 on photos on resume since it opens the door to a lot of bias (unconscious or not) so I hope you offer a lot options without photos / icons.

thefrog 7y ago
I think in that way a picture helps - if someone is biased by only looking at a picture, that's a job you don't want.
- recursive 7y ago
  In most cases, they will be biased by the presence of a picture regardless of its contents.
- robjan 7y ago
  In what way does it help? All it does is change your first impression from a more objective to subjective one.
- sezna 7y ago
  This is not usually the case. Initial resume reviews are often done by HR, some algorithm, or at least somebody who is not who you will actually be working with on the day-to-day. It is incredibly difficult to root out all of the biases in the job application process and even automated attempts have failed[1]. It is best to avoid any opportunity for bias to even enter the system. To say that you're okay being rejected from a job due to your appearance because you wouldn't want that job anyway is defeatist and hurts the cause of those who are truly disadvantaged and would very much like to be employed. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automatio...

user_50123890 7y ago

the problems with resume generators are * privacy: if it's not client-side only, how do I know you're not saving all my data and selling it to advertisers recruiters spammers etc? * popularity: a random recruiter pulls up two applications and they both have the exactly same template. this is probably a bad thing. best case scenario you become less unique and more forgettable, worst case scenario they think you're a liar that has plagiarized the resume from somewhere and the contents aren't correct

vilvadot 7y ago
Completely see your point in the privacy aspect, but it is really difficult to offer a good user experience with a project like this without storing data. I don't even consider selling data as part of a business model for my projects but I understand that is opaque to the user and not everyone is like this. On the second argument, I assume recruiters are seeing tons of resumes presented in the same package daily. I don't think this will affect negatively to the applicants. Hopefully this starts becoming a problem and I get to work and design 100 more templates for variety :)
- avaika 7y ago
  Moreover, as a person who participated in hiring a lot, a unique design for every CV isn't something I'd be happy with. The more it unified, the easier to scan the paper for the things I'm looking for.
  - jahlove 7y ago
    Which is a point against these fancy templates. Even if its super popular, it's still not as popular as a boring word document. The only case for these fancy resumes is for graphic designers in my view, who should be designing the resume themselves, obviously.
  - udayrddy 7y ago
    (because you being a recruiter/recruited a lot) Out-of-context, shamelessly plugging https://nextRound.ml https://nextRound.ml to consider your feedback. To keep the thread precise to the OP, drop an email at uday@notyce.me (just in case you want to feedback) .

richeyryan 7y ago

For me, integration with Linkedin would be much more powerful than integration with Github. My Github is full of my experiments and side projects with ReasonML, OCaml and Clojure. My day job is all about building React applications. Also, a better preview of the non-free themes would be nice but I could imagine you are concerned with people extracting the CV without paying.

vilvadot 7y ago
Yeah, Linkedin was planned, until I discovered they don't provide the profile via API unless you are an aproved developer :( No, I'm not concerned at all with that! There is a full sample preview of each template once you login. I guess I need to put it in the landing to?
kaushikt 7y ago
LinkedIn used to have their Resume builder under LinkedIn Labs. They shut it now. It was pretty cool. As of now, you can download your profile in PDF format with no choices of templates.
quickthrower2 7y ago
Another data point: your existing CV. Most people have one. Might not be good, but I'm sure some it's content could be used.

phoe-krk 7y ago

Do you use {La,}TeX for the resumes? If yes, do you make it possible to download the files in TeX format for your paying users, so they may be hand-tweaked by them?

vilvadot 7y ago
No sorry, I have no experience working with Latex
- phoe-krk 7y ago
  OK - if your resumes are not made with TeX, then the rest of my question is moot. Thanks for answering!

rileyt 7y ago

Photos should not be included on resumes sent to most American companies. They are a huge source of bias in the the hiring process and will either be rejected or have the photo removed immediately.

vilvadot 7y ago
See below, there are templates without picture to chose from.
djsumdog 7y ago
But there are markets where they are expected. In Germany, your resume has a good chance of being discarded if it doesn't display a photo. That has to be kept in mind when making tools like this. They seem to have templates both with and without photos.
- robohoe 7y ago
  Is there a reason why a photo should be included?
  - mfoy_ 7y ago
    I mean... other than the obvious ones? (i.e. the same reasons which are why North American companies usually don't or can't request a photo...)
    - otterley 7y ago
      I can't think of an obvious reason why anyone -- other than someone being hired specifically for their looks such as a model or an actor -- should include their photo along with their curriculum vitae. What "obvious" reasons are you thinking of? To prove they're not a bot or a house pet?
      - mfoy_ 7y ago
        To quote Drawn Together's Foxxy Love: "This whole test is racially biased! Question one: 'What SPF lotion would you use if your were going down to the polo grounds, fellow Klan member?'"

ItsOfficial 7y ago

This is really cool; I love the slick interface! Some of your templates look vaguely familiar though. https://realporthub.herokuapp.com https://realporthub.herokuapp.com *Edited for positivity. This is legit cool.

vilvadot 7y ago
Thanks for the love! I designed the templates taking inspiration on what friends showed me, what found online as well as my previous resumes. To be completely honest its the first time I see that website! But I can see how the black sidebar one looks similar, but they all use pretty common heavily used design patterns.
- ItsOfficial 7y ago
  Definitely! There's only so much room to maneuver on resume layouts as it is. One of the, if no THE, most important things I found was the machine readability of a resume. We could build generators that spit beautiful resumes all day but they wouldn't ever get in front of a human to care.
  - vilvadot 7y ago
    Wow, didn't think about that. I'm not familiar with so automated hiring processes but I guess that is a big concern. Did you find out why? layout, text style? they need a specific template?
    - ItsOfficial 7y ago
      Yeah, I wasn't and didn't either! I love playing around in Adobe Illustrator and so built my resumes in there. I spent DAYS and WEEKS crafting what I thought were a beautiful, icon rich, intuitive, apple-of-my-eye resumes. 250+ applications later the only time I ever got any response was from one or two small operations where it was a human manually reviewing submissions. Turns out HR/recruiting suites that companies use aren't so hot on parsing, classifying, and tagging image based PDF resumes. Haha, who knew, right? Finally a friend turned me on to LaTex and I had GREAT success with that. This made a ton of sense: what could be more machine readable than something built out using markup elements, tags, and IDs that explicitly do all that classifying work for the programs already. So yeah, huge take-away: when your site constructs the resume if you're using HTML and then converting out to PDF (what we did on PortHub) make sure your HTML is verbose and explicit, even if it doesn't get displayed "on page".

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tabtab 7y ago

Does anyone remember the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator? It's not up anymore, but here is a rough clone: https://lotta.se/mission-statement-generator https://lotta.se/mission-statement-generator Click the button to automatically generate a new mission statement.

tambourine_man 7y ago

Is it possible to input the information yourself? I don't use github all that much.

vilvadot 7y ago
Except the repos, once you log in everything is editable by hand. You lose the speed boost, but you have the option yes :)

drKarl 7y ago

Years ago I was using a Word document for my CV but every time I wanted to update the style it was a pain. I found a command line tool that I have been using for years which allows to decouple data (json) and presentation (web technologies based themes, I created my own theme). The name is hackmyresume (https://github.com/hacksalot/HackMyResume https://github.com/hacksalot/HackMyResume) or fluentcv (https://github.com/fluentdesk/FluentCV https://github.com/fluentdesk/FluentCV). I'm afraid it's no longer maintained but I still use it. It supports JsonResume (JRS) and also its own format FRESH. It outputs to multiple formats including word and pdf.

brianpgordon 7y ago

Just a suggestion: I think it would be a good idea to showcase the variety of your available designs up-front, without requiring a signup. I imagine that a big reservation people will have is that they won't want their resume to be recognizable as "one of the three templates offered by that resume generator." You don't have to show a full PDF sample, but just a gallery showing that there is a large crowd of designs one can blend into would go a long way.

vilvadot 7y ago
Thanks for the tip, some people seem to think the same, so that definetly goes into the TO-DO list.
TenJack 7y ago
I agree. I'm not going to sign up without seeing a sample.
- vilvadot 7y ago
  there is a sample on the landing page!
  - ribrars 7y ago
    This is a good example of where UX means a different thing to the user than to the developer. Just because it's available on another page doesn't mean the customer is going to take the time to go figure that out. Take these criticisms graciously and learn how your user's use your software it's going to improve your products immensely.
    - brianpgordon 7y ago
      He's pointing out that there's a link to a full-size PDF sample of one of the templates on the landing page if you scroll down a little bit.
  - Osiris 7y ago

djsumdog 7y ago

A friend of mine had a graphical resume she made in Illustrator and it inspired me to learn Illustrator myself and make this: https://penguindreams.org/files/2018-SumitKhanna-Resume.pdf https://penguindreams.org/files/2018-SumitKhanna-Resume.pdf I like it, and it's got me some good roles (probably also kept me from some roles as I'm sure some threw it in the trash thinking it smelled of marketing rubbish; but I still like it so whateves), but it's also a pain to update. I looked at adapting HackMyResume (listed in the comments) and got somethings into the standard JSON format, but I wanted to keep my timeline and getting it to work programmatically was way more difficult than I thought. Someone provided this answer on StackExchange for Laytex, but I never got things to lineup correctly and sorta gave up: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/183046/how-do-i-develop-a-complex-time-line https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/183046/how-do-i-deve... Every time I think about doing it programmatically, I start down a path, get frustrated and realize I need something now, and end up just updating the old one in Illustrator. I hesitate to use a tool like this since mine looks unique and don't want anyone to recognize it comes from a standard template. It's still pretty neat though and I like the idea of allowing a preview with a watermark as a means to attempt to monetize it.

btbuildem 7y ago
Thanks for sharing that! Part of my job involves data visualization, and what better way to flash those skills on a resume then making custom graphics with my work experience as a dataset. Thank you for the inspiration.
mfbx9da4 7y ago
I see you did great on the first page and then ran out of time
- spraak 7y ago
  The second page is more likely to be a traditional style resume with the same information as the first page
  - sellersam 7y ago

aurbano 7y ago

I use LaTeX for my resume and it has been the best experience so far. My content is super simple, and technically I could change the format whenever (although I'd have to learn LaTeX to modify the template, but I'm sure it's not too difficult). Nowadays I use Overleaf's online tex editor, so I don't even need tex installed to update it.

sezna 7y ago
Would you be interested in sharing your template? I used to use TeX, but the available templates never interested me, and I didn't have the time to DiY a good one.
- twothumbsup 7y ago
  I use one of these templates: https://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/ https://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/
  - sezna 7y ago
    Thanks. These look good.
- ItsOfficial 7y ago
  I've used this template as a starting point with solid success. https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/cv-chandan/vgynfrhcvsfx https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/cv-chandan/vgynfrhc...

rgbimbochamp 7y ago

everyone just use latexresu.me bye

CountHackulus 7y ago

Random bug report, long names overflow into the skills section. Fun tool, though I personally prefer making my own website with print css that is the resume itself (with a PDF copy).

vilvadot 7y ago
Thanks, noting the bug :)

johnwheeler 7y ago

I wasn't expecting much, but I downloaded the sample, and it's definitely something I'd be interested in. Made me think, "Oh yeah, you should do it that way"

vs4vijay 7y ago

I used Resumake.io (https://resumake.io/ https://resumake.io/), very good service, has option to export in LaTeX, PDF and JSON as well.

cr0sh 7y ago

Quick comment - I haven't gone thru the entire site, etc - so maybe you are already aware. I saw the free vs paid options - and the paid being "$30" and I was asking myself "$30 for...how long?" - so I went back (because I didn't want to make a fool of myself before I commented) and read it carefully...and..."oh - for one year of access" Ok - that's fair - but I want to suggest that you make that part a bit more prominent on that card, because if I missed it I am sure others will as well. I don't think the price is unfair (seems reasonable out the gate) - but knowing the terms of how long you get access for that price shouldn't be something you have to search a bit for.

vilvadot 7y ago
Thank you cr0sh, that's great feedback. Actually at first it was very evident $30/year, but I removed it in the last minute because it seemed like a suscription (which is not). Definetly going to make that thing stand out more.

rnotaro 7y ago

Is there literally no ways to delete my user account and data ???

vilvadot 7y ago
sorry, not currently. I should have added that option. By now please send an email to contact@bytevitae.com and I will delete it for you. Sorry for that.

udayrddy 7y ago

So, I'm looking into your sample resume at https://bytevitae.com/cv/bytevitae_sample.pdf https://bytevitae.com/cv/bytevitae_sample.pdf. Unsure, if I understood "OPEN SOURCE" section means. Also, when I tried to copy your previous company name "Influencity" it is copied as "Inbuencity". Care to see what I did with this resume using https://notyce.me https://notyce.me? I validated it to check the resume's suitability in job market. Have a look https://ibb.co/sqqQ1yb https://ibb.co/sqqQ1yb

vilvadot 7y ago
Wow, that "Inbuencity" bug is a weird one O_o, just tried it myself and same happens. Don't even know how it is possible, something about the font maybe? Open source represents open source contributions (aka repos). Well that looks cool and apparently its spot on!
- teddyh 7y ago
  The two characters “f” and “l” are, when typeset, frequently combined into the “ﬂ” ligature. Probably, this is what happens here, and some combination of bugs causes the ﬂ ligature not to be correctly translated back into “fl” when copied.
- udayrddy 7y ago
  Yay, on that "its spot on" although I do not understand on 16.6% Mobile App developer. Not sure what AI looked in there. btw, you may need to look into https://notyce.me/resources/sometimes-its-not-you.html https://notyce.me/resources/sometimes-its-not-you.html tells on the font types you should consider.

app4soft 7y ago

Is it possible make offline app based on your "resume generator for developers"?

vilvadot 7y ago
what do you mean?

JDiculous 7y ago

I respect the hustle, but why do I have to create an account and login with GitHub to see anything? I recently had to rewrite my resume and found it surprisingly difficult to find any decent templates, so I created my own in Google Docs https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LoPO2A_mZXJTpn90K27FPKU3sdnrS_r7mXbic9HUSDw/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LoPO2A_mZXJTpn90K27FPKU3... . Anyone reading this is welcome to use it.

jordan801 7y ago
I made mine as an SPA with Vuejs and some CSS libraries, then converted it to PDF with the print option. It felt appropriate. Material.io style resume, bam! I used it for the first time last week, and I am on to the second round of interviews. [ When all else fails, use your dev skills ]
- ficklepickle 7y ago
  Thanks for mentioning this. I was doing the exact same thing, also with Vue, but never finished it. Your comment inspired me to pick it up again.
  - jordan801 7y ago
    The only major problem I had was the pdf conversion cutting off the styled container. I fixed it by adding an excessive top margin. So just be aware and check the formatting before you ship. :D

gregjotau 7y ago

Maybe a bit off topic, but a targeted cover letter for the specific job you are applying for is also important. I have a template in Latex that I have used on all jobs after university :) http://blog.gregjotau.com/job/2018/06/05/cover_letter_template.html http://blog.gregjotau.com/job/2018/06/05/cover_letter_templa...

ribrars 7y ago

I like this. Small bug: dates for "experience" are showing up incorrect when rendering to pdf.

johnisgood 7y ago

Without having checked it: 1) Does it use templates? If so, resumes will probably look similar to each other, and not stand out from their competition. Is this assumption incorrect? 2) In my opinion, a developer using a resume generator sounds kind of unprofessional or even lazy ("highest quality developer resume in less than 5 minutes"), in contrast to say, using LaTeX (without templates).

ken 7y ago
Isn’t LaTeX just a set of macros? Is that not “lazy” compared to using plain TeX? I would not think less of an engineer who used standard components.

zelphirkalt 7y ago

The website after clicking "get started for free" does not work. It is only a black white page. After looking at the source, I can see the problem. It is _JS only_. The JS is uglified as well, so I am not trusting it. You could have at least made some effort to include a noscript tag. The website also looks like it is hiding functionality behind a registration, instead of letting me try right away, but I cannot confirm this, as the website does not work, as stated above.

sabrehagen 7y ago

I love the idea and simplicity, but if you want conversion to paid plans you must make the paid templates previewable before purchase to establish trust in the investment before the user purchases.

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somada141 7y ago

For a while I've been building my resume(s) by using a LaTeX template (specifically [0]) and copy-pasting data from my LinkedIn profile which I keep fairly up-to-date. It's worked pretty well for me especially when I had to put together academic resumes for which I could just add my publication through the standard LaTeX bibliography practices. I've toyed with the idea of making a resume generator SaaS where the user would enter their LinkedIn URL which my app would scrape and use it to populate different LaTeX templates rendered server-side into PDFs (for free) while offering some sort of editor or the raw LaTeX (in a premium version) where the user could apply edits. While AFAIK scraping LinkedIn was deemed lawful in some previous court case [1] I fear it would be a hard sell. Wonder what kinda trouble I would run into. [0] https://www.sharelatex.com/templates/cv-or-resume/fancy-cv https://www.sharelatex.com/templates/cv-or-resume/fancy-cv [1] http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/09/09/17-16783.pdf http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/09/09/17...

deleted 7y ago

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iamsb 7y ago

Good site and design. My honest reservation about using drastically different resume formats is - resume parsers. Most recruiting agencies, large companies using some form resume parsing to aid in filtering out candidates. Not sure if your formats will get parsed correctly.

robbdimitrov 7y ago

Good idea with nice design and landing page. What’s missing in my opinion are some samples (2-3 generated resumes). The other thing is the pricing. There are CV generators in the $10-$20 range, so maybe adding a “normal” version at 10-15 dollars and maxed out version at 25-30 would capture more price-sensitive users. The copy regarding the price is perfect, but additional price levels may bring more users.

craftoman 7y ago

You made an email "feeder", ready to suck every mail from any developer and sell the data back to some marketing company.

dplgk 7y ago

Where'd you get the illustration on the landing page from?