Sending resumes as text only / attachments

Legal Legal - Work
#1

I’m interested to know opinions on the best way to send resumes when applying for jobs at large companies.

Often, vaccancy announcements don’t specify which resume format they prefer to receive. In this scenario, do you think it is preferable to send:

  1. Text only with line breaks style within body of email

  2. Word file attachments

  3. .pdf files

?

Some career sites advise sending all of the above, but my concern is that it will look junior or unprofessional to bombard a recruiter / hr manager with so much information.

My big concern is not being considered at all if the company doesn’t open attachments, etc…

#2

I would go with the Word file so it can be nicely formatted etc.

#3

Me too, with a covering letter as part of the email body.

#4

Word file attachment, no silly fonts or formatting. Nicely spaced out. The American MBA “I must squeeze my resume onto one page” is a pain in the arse for HR people.

#5

The recruiters I’ve dealt with in the past have always asked for Word format resumes only. (Even those looking for UNIX wizards. :idunno: )

#6

I usually send mine as PDF, and include a link to an HTML version on my website in the cover letter.

The reason is simple - I use a system called reStructuredText (reST) to do all my documents stuff. The PDFs it generates via LaTeX are just gorgeous - big margins, beautiful spacing, good fonts. On screen it looks great, printed out it looks a million times better than anything I can hack up in Word.

It also gives me the HTML version for no extra work :wink:

#7

[quote=“Brendon”]I usually send mine as PDF, and include a link to an HTML version on my website in the cover letter.

The reason is simple - I use a system called reStructuredText (reST) to do all my documents stuff. The PDFs it generates via LaTeX are just gorgeous - big margins, beautiful spacing, good fonts. On screen it looks great, printed out it looks a million times better than anything I can hack up in Word.

It also gives me the HTML version for no extra work :wink:[/quote]

A nightmare for a recruitment agency. But of course fine for sending into companies on spec. Resumes are copied and pasted into the recruiter’s own database and format. They have to save the pdf as an rtf file and then deal with the resultant mess.

Any headhunter will thank you for a plain Word file, Arial and Times New Roman headings, no underlining, italics if you must, and generous spacing.

#8

[quote=“Lord Lucan”][quote=“Brendon”]I usually send mine as PDF, and include a link to an HTML version on my website in the cover letter.

The reason is simple - I use a system called reStructuredText (reST) to do all my documents stuff. The PDFs it generates via LaTeX are just gorgeous - big margins, beautiful spacing, good fonts. On screen it looks great, printed out it looks a million times better than anything I can hack up in Word.

It also gives me the HTML version for no extra work :wink:[/quote]

A nightmare for a recruitment agency. But of course fine for sending into companies on spec. Resumes are copied and pasted into the recruiter’s own database and format. They have to save the pdf as an rtf file and then deal with the resultant mess.

Any headhunter will thank you for a plain Word file, Arial and Times New Roman headings, no underlining, italics if you must, and generous spacing.[/quote]

They could probably just copy and paste from the HTML version, which has identical content. I admit though that recruitment agencies feature nowhere on my list of concerns :slight_smile:

#9

[quote=“Brendon”][quote=“Lord Lucan”][quote=“Brendon”]I usually send mine as PDF, and include a link to an HTML version on my website in the cover letter.

The reason is simple - I use a system called reStructuredText (reST) to do all my documents stuff. The PDFs it generates via LaTeX are just gorgeous - big margins, beautiful spacing, good fonts. On screen it looks great, printed out it looks a million times better than anything I can hack up in Word.

It also gives me the HTML version for no extra work :wink:[/quote]

A nightmare for a recruitment agency. But of course fine for sending into companies on spec. Resumes are copied and pasted into the recruiter’s own database and format. They have to save the pdf as an rtf file and then deal with the resultant mess.

Any headhunter will thank you for a plain Word file, Arial and Times New Roman headings, no underlining, italics if you must, and generous spacing.[/quote]

They could probably just copy and paste from the HTML version, which has identical content. I admit though that recruitment agencies feature nowhere on my list of concerns :slight_smile:[/quote]

Yup. And a pdf ensures that even if your target is using Letter paper and bonkers margins in Word your CV still looks good. I suppose a pdf file and a Word file would be the best of all?

#10

Are you sending to companies in Taiwan or North America/Europe? If in Taiwan, suggest to put your picture in there as well. Depends on the industry and position. Also in Asia, many-paged resumes is a good thing, more information, the better.

#11

Recruiters do not have time to muddle through multiple documents in various formats. You will find that most require a text format. Prepare your resume in multiple formats. Then send the format that is requested and most do specify. If they don’t, go to their website (do some research) and get a hint about what they are looking for. Think about it. You are required to sort through the resumes received and only forward the short list. If the recruiter forwards your resume that has been compiled on A4, it may be all screwed up when it is printed. Follow the suggestions in the advertisement but if they don’t designate, do a word.doc but in a format that will print on the paper size in use in that country. I have been through this many times between the U.S. and Australia. U.S. is 9 1/2 X 11 and Australia is A4. If, at first glance, the resume looks fowled up, it’s easier to by-pass than it is to make sense of it. It gets dumped and sometimes shouldn’t be. Give them what they want but not in mulitple forms. If they don’t have time to read it in one format, they sure won’t read it in multiple formats.

#12

If you do Word, keep it simple. Their version of word might differ from yours or they might not have all the fancy fonts you have etc. WHich ends up in your resume looking jacked up. Keeping resume’s simple and clean is a good idea anyways.

Right now (in Taiwan) I am using PDF (because I have chinese characters and a photo imbeded into my resume) and HTML for reference to my online version of my resume. Works great for here. However, I would not do this in the US.

#13

The silly “one-page” convention, de rigueur in the 80s, is now passe in the US; still, it is not advisable to go beyond two pages unless you have extraordinary credentials.

Use simple black-and-white pages with simple, clear formatting; recruiters are not impressed by fancy colors and fonts, they’re impressed by clearly accessible information. Also, don’t include a photo on a resume going to the US.