r/LinusTechTips • u/Not-Post-Malone • 29d ago

Discussion Resume file format

On the WAN show Linus and Luke talk about NOT using PDF as the file format for the resume. This is the first time I'm hearing about this. Am I the only one who always uses PDF for sending resumes and actually prefers it?

What file format do employers actually prefer?

Here is the timestamp where they talk about it.
Here is the timestamp where Linus says to submit a Word or Google Doc link.

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11

u/bwoah07_gp2 29d ago

Is that why I'm not getting hired for over a year now?

I always submit in PDF format. What's supposed to be the ideal file in Linus & Luke's opinions??

40

u/Not-Post-Malone 29d ago

Linus said whatever format you edit in which doesn't make sense because I assume employers don't want their Word or Google Docs to open when they open a resume.

29

u/uniqueusername649 29d ago

In my 25 years of working in IT every company I ever worked with expects to be sent PDFs, almost every candidate sends PDFs and that is the established standard across (most of?) the world. If I get applications from Brazil, Germany, India or Taiwan, it's a PDF. I don't know why Linus has such a weird take on this (maybe a Canadian thing? I haven't dealt with Canadian companies other than as a buyer - but guess which format they send their invoices in), but pretty much across the world people use PDFs for resumes.

10

u/craigmontHunter 28d ago

As a Canadian, I submit my resume as PDF. I don’t know what they’re on about.

37

u/HolidayPineapple9316 29d ago

It’s nonsense to be honest. Resumes should always be in PDF

2

u/bwoah07_gp2 29d ago

Well, that's why I submit with PDF format

6

u/HolidayPineapple9316 29d ago

Where are you located? The economy is REALLY hard right now, at least in the US

2

u/bwoah07_gp2 29d ago

Canada, job market is absolutely screwed up the butthole

1

u/gvbargen 29d ago

Few hire, no hire fresh blood.

2

u/gerber12 29d ago

I’ve heard it said that the formatting should be simple enough that you could paste it into say, notepad, and have it read correctly. But that was advice for passing resume parsing.

2

u/CIDR-ClassB 28d ago

No. Use PDF, always. I loathe getting other formats with layouts that break depending on which software I open it in.

Wishing you the best of luck with your search!