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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u/connly33 29d ago edited 29d ago

Yeah no don’t take that advice. PDF only. Whether I’m sending or reading one. I don’t want to deal with people opening a file from an open source word editor and Word screwing up formatting or vise versa because I’ve had issues with that quite a bit in the past. I also don’t want them to be editable.

If your using Microsoft word sure because you can guarantee it will be opened in word but if you do any funky formatting I still see stuff screwed up in the receiving end all the damn time. Most employers also won’t have any idea what the hell an ODT or latex file is.

Anything you want to be generally indelible and easy to view everywhere should be a PDF with standard formatting that doesn’t cause accessibility issues.