File formats for resumes (was Re:soffice cli interface?)

[Alex Beamish]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 11:24 PM, Evan Leibovitch <evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Christopher Browne wrote:
>  > That meshes nicely with the reason why I'd be loathe to allow them to
>  > have anything *BUT* a .pdf document, namely the fact that I don't want
>  > those sorts of folks to have any capability to modify my resume.
>  >
>  They don't want to modify it, they want to do keyword extraction. Such
>  activity is thwarted by embedding the resume as a JPG (it's unlikely
>  they use OCR) and thus such a tactic is pointless. And PDFs are usually
>  disliked because they're often bloated -- including every used font is
>  just one thing that makes PDFs generally much bigger than DOC or ODT
>  files of the same document.

Disagree .. my latest resume in PDF format is 75K. I don't consider
that bloated, and a PDF is terrific because it's (mostly)
platform-agnostic and it views and prints well.

>  In any case, the job of a recruiter -- and the only way they make money
>  -- is matching people with suitable jobs. If I was using the service of
>  such a recruiter and small modifications in my resume would make that
>  task easier, why would I object? I have found that "good"  resumes are
>  in the eye of the beholder and sometimes need to be modified for the
>  employer. If the headhunter is willing to do that work for me I'd hardly
>  want to get in their way.

Oh, of course the story changes if instead of applying for a job, you
are working with a recruiter or an outplacement specialist. Then I'd
probably provide multiple formats and pick one that everyone can live
with (if possible).

-- 
Alex Beamish
Toronto, Ontario
aka talexb
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