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I used to create my resume in LaTeX. Very over-engineered and a lot of work to make. And not even that easy to update. Over the years I moved on to a simple Wor

by lucumo 4y ago

I used to create my resume in LaTeX. Very over-engineered and a lot of work to make. And not even that easy to update. Over the years I moved on to a simple Word document that I just copy-and-edit when I search for something new. Far less effort for the same pay-off, so it's much more efficient. LaTeX might still be worth it for large documents (e.g. books) with lots of mathematical type-setting, but for small stuff Word is much easier.

denysvitali 4y ago
Same but I switched to a web page (with Vue) instead, that can be printed as a PDF. Definitely more manageable, especially when it comes to alignment, multi-page tables and fonts. Previous template: https://github.com/denysvitali/cv https://github.com/denysvitali/cv Rendered: https://github.com/denysvitali/cv/blob/master/main.pdf https://github.com/denysvitali/cv/blob/master/main.pdf
- UI_at_80x24 4y ago
  Your resume looks great and is a good inspiration; but why have your picture? Unless you are applying for TV/Movies/Modeling....
  - allarm 4y ago
    It was (is?) a common thing in Germany and probably in Switzerland as well.
    - UI_at_80x24 4y ago
      Regardless of it being popular, it only opens oneself up for being discriminated against. Hiring person might have a bias against people with blonde/brown/black hair. Oh! they look like they are cocky and difficult. This person reminds me of my ex, there is no way I could be in the same office..... This list of biases are endless. Sexism/Racism/Ableism/Ageism/etc are all given a free pass if you include a picture, but become various shades of obscure without it.
      - trosi 4y ago
        Or the opposite could happen. Bias works in both directions.
        UI_at_80x24 4y ago
        haha, I have heard that it does; but my Hunchback of NotreDame looking self would never know! =) jk, I do benefit from white privilege and with a name as common as John Smith I am sure I pass many other unseen/unknown-to-me hurdles.
        mixmastamyk 4y ago
        Make sure to have pointy hair if applying for a PHB position.
        ghostpepper 4y ago
        As an applicant it might be nice to get unfairly-preferential treatment but at a system level bias in either direction is undesirable
      - allarm 4y ago
        I'm not sure why you decided to educate me on this topic, I was just pointing out that there are possible reasons why a person from Switzerland put a photo on his resume. I don't do that, even though I currently live in Germany - for the reasons you've mentioned. So basically I agree with you.
        UI_at_80x24 4y ago
        I wasn't trying to argue/fight or even educate, simply carrying on the conversation as I thought it was occurring. Explain my thought process and reasoning for questioning the practice. If you feel confronted, I humbly apologize.
  - Yujf 4y ago
    I agree it is weird, but in Europe (atleast Belgium but I assume other European countries as well, the commenter here is living in Switserland) a CV generally contains a picture
  - denysvitali 4y ago
    Pretty common in EU (in my case, Switzerland). I know that in some countries it is suggested to not put a picture on the CV because they want to be as unbiased as possible - but this is generally not an issue where I live. In any case, as an Hiring Manager I do appreciate seeing the faces of the candidates on their CVs. It adds some personality to the CVs that are generally just black & white. But again, this is very cultural and might be seen in the wrong way in, say, the US.
- denysvitali 4y ago
  I just published the v2 (in Vue) on GitHub [1]. You can see it live here [2]. It is obviously responsive and includes a dark mode :) [1]: https://github.com/denysvitali/cv-2 https://github.com/denysvitali/cv-2 [2]: https://cv.denv.it/ https://cv.denv.it/
MengerSponge 4y ago
One major benefit of LaTeX is it's free, it will always be free, and it probably looks nice. One major downside of LaTeX generated PDFs is HR's pdf parsers mangle them, and you'll spend hours manually keying elements into any application website you're unfortunate enough to encounter. It's probably a wash. For a CV, LaTeX is way, way, way better for your personal bibliography. BibTex/BibLaTeX make it so nice to have a list of publications in your document.
- MengerSponge 4y ago
  For the five readers who have LaTeX CVs, here's a useful trick. It's easy to add a fleuron to noteworthy publications or elements in a list: \section{Publications} \blfootnote{\adforn{63} indicates Editors' Suggestion} \begin{enumerate}[align=right] \item [\adforn{63}\,\stepcounter{enumi}\labelenumi] \fullcite{greatpaper} \item \fullcite{prettygoodpaper}
- deltarholamda 4y ago
  >One major downside of LaTeX generated PDFs is HR's pdf parsers mangle them Can you expand on this? I would have thought that parsing a LaTeX PDF would be way, way easier than some random word processor's export-to-PDF.
  - MengerSponge 4y ago
    But it isn't some random word processor. It's Word. This might change with the growing use of Google Docs, but Word is basically a monoculture. It might be easier to handle the weirdos who use LaTeX, but there aren't enough of us. There's also a chance that they mangle everybody's documents, and HR is just inflicting hours of toil on millions for no real reason at all. Well structured Word files are based on forms and have well-labeled fields. That might help? I dunno. Maybe a Microsoft person or a Salesforce person can lift the curtain a smidge.
  - dietrichepp 4y ago
    LaTeX is old. It was designed long before PDFs existed. Long before Unicode existed. You can get a good PDF out of LaTeX but it requires some work. You’d think that the “semantic” nature of LaTeX makes it easy, but there’s an expansive set of macros between the source document and the PDF. Just one example—LaTeX does things like replace “---” with “—” or replace “fi” with “ﬁ”. How does LaTeX do it? At some point, somebody wrote some code which recognizes those patterns in the source file and emits the appropriate glyph. But these replacements are not equivalent—the “---” em dash needs to be a Unicode character with its own glyph, and “fi” needs to be two characters that share one glyph. Not important for DVI files, but important for PDF files where you want to copy the text out. You can get this to work in LaTeX but it won’t work correctly by default, depending on how you are getting a PDF file. You end up with a preamble in all your LaTeX files to make them work nicely. You also probably want to use xelatex or lualatex instead of pdflatex (I don’t keep up with this stuff—get up to date recommendations elsewhere).
moffkalast 4y ago
> LaTeX might still be worth it for large documents Having written my thesis in it, I can say that it very much isn't. If you don't plan ahead and make sure you split chapters into individual files it takes actual minutes to compile and when it doesn't it's nigh impossible to figure out where the problem is because the error logs somehow manage to be less useful than if there weren't any logs at all. It's a very nice idea in concept but the implementation is just arghhh. My current go-to for this sort of thing is Markdown instead. It may be far less powerful but it's also far more practical in almost all cases.
bfors 4y ago
Same for me. Now my resume is in a google doc and still looks great. Latex just wasn't worth the time spent tinkering, and I'm not convinced better typesetting helps developers get jobs.

by lucumo 4y ago

denysvitali 4y ago

Same but I switched to a web page (with Vue) instead, that can be printed as a PDF. Definitely more manageable, especially when it comes to alignment, multi-page tables and fonts. Previous template: https://github.com/denysvitali/cv https://github.com/denysvitali/cv Rendered: https://github.com/denysvitali/cv/blob/master/main.pdf https://github.com/denysvitali/cv/blob/master/main.pdf

UI_at_80x24 4y ago
Your resume looks great and is a good inspiration; but why have your picture? Unless you are applying for TV/Movies/Modeling....
- allarm 4y ago
  It was (is?) a common thing in Germany and probably in Switzerland as well.
  - UI_at_80x24 4y ago
    Regardless of it being popular, it only opens oneself up for being discriminated against. Hiring person might have a bias against people with blonde/brown/black hair. Oh! they look like they are cocky and difficult. This person reminds me of my ex, there is no way I could be in the same office..... This list of biases are endless. Sexism/Racism/Ableism/Ageism/etc are all given a free pass if you include a picture, but become various shades of obscure without it.
    - trosi 4y ago
      Or the opposite could happen. Bias works in both directions.
      - UI_at_80x24 4y ago
        haha, I have heard that it does; but my Hunchback of NotreDame looking self would never know! =) jk, I do benefit from white privilege and with a name as common as John Smith I am sure I pass many other unseen/unknown-to-me hurdles.
      - mixmastamyk 4y ago
        Make sure to have pointy hair if applying for a PHB position.
      - ghostpepper 4y ago
        As an applicant it might be nice to get unfairly-preferential treatment but at a system level bias in either direction is undesirable
    - allarm 4y ago
      I'm not sure why you decided to educate me on this topic, I was just pointing out that there are possible reasons why a person from Switzerland put a photo on his resume. I don't do that, even though I currently live in Germany - for the reasons you've mentioned. So basically I agree with you.
      - UI_at_80x24 4y ago
        I wasn't trying to argue/fight or even educate, simply carrying on the conversation as I thought it was occurring. Explain my thought process and reasoning for questioning the practice. If you feel confronted, I humbly apologize.
- Yujf 4y ago
  I agree it is weird, but in Europe (atleast Belgium but I assume other European countries as well, the commenter here is living in Switserland) a CV generally contains a picture
- denysvitali 4y ago
  Pretty common in EU (in my case, Switzerland). I know that in some countries it is suggested to not put a picture on the CV because they want to be as unbiased as possible - but this is generally not an issue where I live. In any case, as an Hiring Manager I do appreciate seeing the faces of the candidates on their CVs. It adds some personality to the CVs that are generally just black & white. But again, this is very cultural and might be seen in the wrong way in, say, the US.
denysvitali 4y ago
I just published the v2 (in Vue) on GitHub [1]. You can see it live here [2]. It is obviously responsive and includes a dark mode :) [1]: https://github.com/denysvitali/cv-2 https://github.com/denysvitali/cv-2 [2]: https://cv.denv.it/ https://cv.denv.it/

MengerSponge 4y ago

One major benefit of LaTeX is it's free, it will always be free, and it probably looks nice. One major downside of LaTeX generated PDFs is HR's pdf parsers mangle them, and you'll spend hours manually keying elements into any application website you're unfortunate enough to encounter. It's probably a wash. For a CV, LaTeX is way, way, way better for your personal bibliography. BibTex/BibLaTeX make it so nice to have a list of publications in your document.

MengerSponge 4y ago
For the five readers who have LaTeX CVs, here's a useful trick. It's easy to add a fleuron to noteworthy publications or elements in a list: \section{Publications} \blfootnote{\adforn{63} indicates Editors' Suggestion} \begin{enumerate}[align=right] \item [\adforn{63}\,\stepcounter{enumi}\labelenumi] \fullcite{greatpaper} \item \fullcite{prettygoodpaper}
deltarholamda 4y ago
>One major downside of LaTeX generated PDFs is HR's pdf parsers mangle them Can you expand on this? I would have thought that parsing a LaTeX PDF would be way, way easier than some random word processor's export-to-PDF.
- MengerSponge 4y ago
  But it isn't some random word processor. It's Word. This might change with the growing use of Google Docs, but Word is basically a monoculture. It might be easier to handle the weirdos who use LaTeX, but there aren't enough of us. There's also a chance that they mangle everybody's documents, and HR is just inflicting hours of toil on millions for no real reason at all. Well structured Word files are based on forms and have well-labeled fields. That might help? I dunno. Maybe a Microsoft person or a Salesforce person can lift the curtain a smidge.
- dietrichepp 4y ago
  LaTeX is old. It was designed long before PDFs existed. Long before Unicode existed. You can get a good PDF out of LaTeX but it requires some work. You’d think that the “semantic” nature of LaTeX makes it easy, but there’s an expansive set of macros between the source document and the PDF. Just one example—LaTeX does things like replace “---” with “—” or replace “fi” with “ﬁ”. How does LaTeX do it? At some point, somebody wrote some code which recognizes those patterns in the source file and emits the appropriate glyph. But these replacements are not equivalent—the “---” em dash needs to be a Unicode character with its own glyph, and “fi” needs to be two characters that share one glyph. Not important for DVI files, but important for PDF files where you want to copy the text out. You can get this to work in LaTeX but it won’t work correctly by default, depending on how you are getting a PDF file. You end up with a preamble in all your LaTeX files to make them work nicely. You also probably want to use xelatex or lualatex instead of pdflatex (I don’t keep up with this stuff—get up to date recommendations elsewhere).

moffkalast 4y ago

> LaTeX might still be worth it for large documents Having written my thesis in it, I can say that it very much isn't. If you don't plan ahead and make sure you split chapters into individual files it takes actual minutes to compile and when it doesn't it's nigh impossible to figure out where the problem is because the error logs somehow manage to be less useful than if there weren't any logs at all. It's a very nice idea in concept but the implementation is just arghhh. My current go-to for this sort of thing is Markdown instead. It may be far less powerful but it's also far more practical in almost all cases.

bfors 4y ago

Same for me. Now my resume is in a google doc and still looks great. Latex just wasn't worth the time spent tinkering, and I'm not convinced better typesetting helps developers get jobs.