11 ms·

I eventually gave up on Word templates and now keep my resume in LaTeX. Neat and organized - not unlike this example only with more detail and nicer fonts :)

by jcadam 4y ago

I eventually gave up on Word templates and now keep my resume in LaTeX. Neat and organized - not unlike this example only with more detail and nicer fonts :) Occasionally a recruiter will ask/demand I give it to them in MS Word - I've learned it's always a bad idea to give recruiter a resume in an easily editable format.

system2 4y ago
LaTeX seems very difficult. Why are you using it for such a basic job you could do with MS Word?
oslem 4y ago
I’m assuming you’re concerned with resume manipulation? Or is there another reason you prefer to submit your resume in a non-editable format?
- jcadam 4y ago
  Yep, I've been surprised by the contents of my resume at an interview set up by a recruiter once. "It says on your resume you have extensive experience in X." "I do not." They also have a thing for stripping your name and contact details out and pasting their ugly letterhead over the top. Which I suppose they could still do with a PDF if they have Acrobat Pro.
  - bitwize 4y ago
    They only "came across" your résumé -- similar to how San Franciscans come across turds. 99 times out of 100 they didn't even bother to read it.
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    > They also have a thing for stripping your name and contact details out This makes some amount of sense because they want to avoid the company bypassing the recruiter and their commission. I was once hired like this (although I didn't know it until much later, when the owner told me). I think it's a realistic and reasonable fear. I have a "redacted" version of my CV for this purpose which removes the personal information, but I can't recall I ever actually used it since I haven't really used recruiters for a decade.
- xeromal 4y ago
  Resume manipulation is actually more common than you think if you go through a 3rd party recruiter, the ones that cold call you for jobs. They usually strip the content from it and drop it into a container resume that has their details so that they get credit from the hire I assume. lol. That being said, whatever the poster was doing to stop the resume from being edited is moot. They will just copy the content from the PDF and paste it into a new one.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  I see obviously not-the-original resumes from basically every recruiter. If you tell a recruiter "we need someone with senior FOOlang experience", the next day there will be six resumes, one of which has an organic "brought in FOOlang to orchestrate object frackers, reducing development time" and five of which have "N years FOOLAND" inserted into a Skills section in a different font.
  - lake_vincent 4y ago
    This is interesting...what do you suspect is behind this? Do recruiters just tell candidates "Hey, make sure to put FOOlang on your resume before you apply to this job."
    - dsr_ 4y ago
      No, I'm strongly implying that many recruiters will just change resumes with minimal regard for the truth. Note the difference between FOOlang and FOOLAND, among other things...
      - lake_vincent 4y ago
        Woah, that is way more insidious than I was expecting. I get what you mean now, and that just seems really stupid on the recruiter's part. Doesn't it come out during the interview process if there's BS on the resume? But I'm guessing that's your point, right? Because the hiring manager should notice, and the interview process should screen for it, so this must be a symptom of much larger scale dysfunction in the tech recruiting/hiring space.
        dsr_ 4y ago
        In the best case scenario, the recruiter called up twenty prospects and said "Quick question -- have you worked with FOOLAND?" "You mean FOOlang? Yeah, a little." "And what jobs did you have when you did that?" "Uh, I learned a little about FOOlang in the job I had from 2010-2012, and then it came up again in the job in 2015." "Thanks! I think I'll have something for you tomorrow." And then the recruiter edits "Skills" to include six years of the still-misheard FOOLAND. Everything else is worse.
mmmpop 4y ago
AlbertCory 4y ago
I just downloaded the MS annual report (don't ask why) which is in Word, naturally, and it was marked "Final" just to discourage / prevent editing. I have no idea how hard it is to get around that, but probably too hard for most headhunters.
- rr888 4y ago
  Sounds like you dont have a culture where docs with "2022 Budget FINAL v2 - my copy (3).xls" aren't normal :)
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    No, indeed I don't. So enlighten me, since I don't use Word much: if you mark your resume "Final" and a headhunter wants to "improve" it, what do they need to do?
    - LtWorf 4y ago
      Unmark it? :D In some pdf readers there is an option "respect limitations"… by disabling it you can print even when print is disallowed and so on. I guess it's the same with word documents.
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      I just answered my own question, since I had the MS report in Word. I was hoping I'd have to supply a password to edit it, which would be a somewhat reasonable level of security. But no; you just click "edit anyway." Duh.
      - chaorace 4y ago
        Unforunately, being able to read the document is already sufficient access to make your own copy and alter it however you please. The best you can do is a digital signature[1], which proves that the document has not been tampered with. Of course, it's up to the recipient to ask for a signed document and to actually check if the signature is still present and accurate upon receipt. Otherwise, it's very trivial for a third-party to remove the signature and add their own edits. [1]: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/add-or-remove-a-digital-signature-in-office-files-70d26dc9-be10-46f1-8efa-719c8b3f1a2d https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/add-or-remove-a-di...
googlryas 4y ago
I got that request once - I just took a screenshot of my tex rendered resume and made it full page in word. I actually got an interview - I never followed up, but I thought maybe they had a security policy against opening PDFs or something.
quadrifoliate 4y ago
Yeah, I usually move on from these recruiters. "Can you send it to me as a Word file?"-style recruiters have always been correlated with a poor experience for me.
- Jolter 4y ago
  My experience has been that great workplaces sometimes have Whitt luck with recruiters, so you’ll end up judging a book by its cover. But one only has time to make so many applications, and you gotta filter them somehow, so why not by recruiter skill?

by jcadam 4y ago

system2 4y ago

LaTeX seems very difficult. Why are you using it for such a basic job you could do with MS Word?

oslem 4y ago

I’m assuming you’re concerned with resume manipulation? Or is there another reason you prefer to submit your resume in a non-editable format?

jcadam 4y ago
Yep, I've been surprised by the contents of my resume at an interview set up by a recruiter once. "It says on your resume you have extensive experience in X." "I do not." They also have a thing for stripping your name and contact details out and pasting their ugly letterhead over the top. Which I suppose they could still do with a PDF if they have Acrobat Pro.
- bitwize 4y ago
  They only "came across" your résumé -- similar to how San Franciscans come across turds. 99 times out of 100 they didn't even bother to read it.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  > They also have a thing for stripping your name and contact details out This makes some amount of sense because they want to avoid the company bypassing the recruiter and their commission. I was once hired like this (although I didn't know it until much later, when the owner told me). I think it's a realistic and reasonable fear. I have a "redacted" version of my CV for this purpose which removes the personal information, but I can't recall I ever actually used it since I haven't really used recruiters for a decade.
xeromal 4y ago
Resume manipulation is actually more common than you think if you go through a 3rd party recruiter, the ones that cold call you for jobs. They usually strip the content from it and drop it into a container resume that has their details so that they get credit from the hire I assume. lol. That being said, whatever the poster was doing to stop the resume from being edited is moot. They will just copy the content from the PDF and paste it into a new one.
dsr_ 4y ago
I see obviously not-the-original resumes from basically every recruiter. If you tell a recruiter "we need someone with senior FOOlang experience", the next day there will be six resumes, one of which has an organic "brought in FOOlang to orchestrate object frackers, reducing development time" and five of which have "N years FOOLAND" inserted into a Skills section in a different font.
- lake_vincent 4y ago
  This is interesting...what do you suspect is behind this? Do recruiters just tell candidates "Hey, make sure to put FOOlang on your resume before you apply to this job."
  - dsr_ 4y ago
    No, I'm strongly implying that many recruiters will just change resumes with minimal regard for the truth. Note the difference between FOOlang and FOOLAND, among other things...
    - lake_vincent 4y ago
      Woah, that is way more insidious than I was expecting. I get what you mean now, and that just seems really stupid on the recruiter's part. Doesn't it come out during the interview process if there's BS on the resume? But I'm guessing that's your point, right? Because the hiring manager should notice, and the interview process should screen for it, so this must be a symptom of much larger scale dysfunction in the tech recruiting/hiring space.
      - dsr_ 4y ago
        In the best case scenario, the recruiter called up twenty prospects and said "Quick question -- have you worked with FOOLAND?" "You mean FOOlang? Yeah, a little." "And what jobs did you have when you did that?" "Uh, I learned a little about FOOlang in the job I had from 2010-2012, and then it came up again in the job in 2015." "Thanks! I think I'll have something for you tomorrow." And then the recruiter edits "Skills" to include six years of the still-misheard FOOLAND. Everything else is worse.

mmmpop 4y ago

AlbertCory 4y ago

I just downloaded the MS annual report (don't ask why) which is in Word, naturally, and it was marked "Final" just to discourage / prevent editing. I have no idea how hard it is to get around that, but probably too hard for most headhunters.

rr888 4y ago
Sounds like you dont have a culture where docs with "2022 Budget FINAL v2 - my copy (3).xls" aren't normal :)
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  No, indeed I don't. So enlighten me, since I don't use Word much: if you mark your resume "Final" and a headhunter wants to "improve" it, what do they need to do?
  - LtWorf 4y ago
    Unmark it? :D In some pdf readers there is an option "respect limitations"… by disabling it you can print even when print is disallowed and so on. I guess it's the same with word documents.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    I just answered my own question, since I had the MS report in Word. I was hoping I'd have to supply a password to edit it, which would be a somewhat reasonable level of security. But no; you just click "edit anyway." Duh.
    - chaorace 4y ago
      Unforunately, being able to read the document is already sufficient access to make your own copy and alter it however you please. The best you can do is a digital signature[1], which proves that the document has not been tampered with. Of course, it's up to the recipient to ask for a signed document and to actually check if the signature is still present and accurate upon receipt. Otherwise, it's very trivial for a third-party to remove the signature and add their own edits. [1]: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/add-or-remove-a-digital-signature-in-office-files-70d26dc9-be10-46f1-8efa-719c8b3f1a2d https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/add-or-remove-a-di...

googlryas 4y ago

I got that request once - I just took a screenshot of my tex rendered resume and made it full page in word. I actually got an interview - I never followed up, but I thought maybe they had a security policy against opening PDFs or something.

quadrifoliate 4y ago

Yeah, I usually move on from these recruiters. "Can you send it to me as a Word file?"-style recruiters have always been correlated with a poor experience for me.

Jolter 4y ago
My experience has been that great workplaces sometimes have Whitt luck with recruiters, so you’ll end up judging a book by its cover. But one only has time to make so many applications, and you gotta filter them somehow, so why not by recruiter skill?