LaTeX CV Template | Hacker News Reader

LaTeX CV Template

jblevins.org

95 pointsadambyrtek56 comments

I quit my job because of a cartoon about having a LaTeX CV.

I had no plans of making a move, when I saw this cartoon on reddit: http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=56

So I redid my CV from scratch in LaTeX, and it looked pretty good (http://danielromaniuk.com/files/Daniel_Romaniuk_CV.pdf). All of this CV business made me curious to poke around, so I pinged the few companies that are involved in flight simulation.

It turns out they each had a few average-interesting positions available, and my wife and I are both sick of living in Dubai, so I send out a few CVs. A few months later, I accepted a job at the last company where I worked. I was just waiting for an email about my security clearance going through. And waiting. And waiting.

To make a long story, I didn't get the job. The combination of a job freeze and an endless security clearance process slowly made the offer disappear.

Just as well though. I have really interesting plans now to move next year, and it's a thousand times more ambitious and exciting than where I would be now if it had all worked out. I guess I just needed to get that damned LaTeX CV out of my system.

Edit: oh yeah, and I formally quit my current job during this whole process, thankfully they had the grace to cancel my resignation when the new thing fell through. That was a stupid thing to do, kids.

You may also find some nice examples here: http://www.tuteurs.ens.fr/logiciels/latex/

Translation:

CVs: here are several CV examples, with different layouts, and using different techniques. It is true that for someone who is not familiar with LaTeX, common text processing software might be easier for typesetting a simple CV. This said, using LaTeX is also seeing how other people use it...

o CV1 (cv1.txt,cv1.ps.gz): simple

o CV2 (cv2.txt,cv.cls,cv2.ps.gz): more complex, but also nicer, it uses its own document class 'CV', written to that purpose (...)

o CV3 (cv3.txt,cv3.ps.gz): simple and elegant

Files can be found here: http://www.tuteurs.ens.fr/logiciels/latex/templates/. You can also check UK TUG's FAQ (http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=cv).

But in my opinion the best thing is to write your own template from scratch so that it matches best with your personality.

I am a lazy person. So the best thing for me is to use somebody else's template.

I really like moderncv, check http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/modernc...

An example http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/moderncv/example...

You can also easily integrate your existing publications via an bibtex file

Edit: Fixed the link, sorry!

I like it too. With XeTeX and good quality typefaces, it does an excellent job.

ModernCV looks a lot better than the OP, especially with fontspec.

If you're thinking about having your CV in latex, you might want to think carefully about whether or not you're doing it wrong.

Most people compile their latex CVs to PDF. If you using a recruiter, this is a pain for most recruiters as they like to remove contact details from the CV before passing it on. Recruiters are generally not tech savvy enough to remove it from a PDF. There are also some places that demand CVs in Word format. As shitty as it is, Word is the de facto document format for HR.

If you do insist on using Latex for a CV though, there are some gorgeous templates on CTAN. Just bear in mind that some might not appreciate it as much as if it were written in word.

Although I agree, the other side is that making it impossible to edit CV's will force recruiters to let you make the CV. I get CV's from recruiters that are so full of nonsense and boilerplate HR-speak that it's painful to watch, and it's very obvious that the recruiter put those things in himself. If I ever need to work with one I'll fight tooth and nail to get them to let me make my own CV to send around.

I hate that both as an employer and employee. Anyone who does that to us, we stop doing business with them.

Recruiters also sometimes make stuff up. It's a lot of fun walking into an interview where the interviewer thinks you know java, and you haven't actually touched it since 2001.

Apparently the recruiter assumed that since I used it when working in at a chem lab in college, I must still know it. Therefore, it belongs on my "skills" section.

This thread is reminding me a bit too much of the business card scene from American Psycho:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoIvd3zzu4Y

but uh, nice CV's guys.

I am pretty sure everyone is posting their own and favourite CV + templates to help people who are about to make a CV, not as some form of alpha male ego competition.

I forgot whose online LaTeX CV template I used to create my own resume, but it was very nice and helpful for a TeX noob like myself, better looking than this one. This is what mine looks like, with very minimal changes in layout/design compared the original: http://www.scribd.com/doc/37894947/Resume-of-Muhammed-Hoque

That looks pretty similar to the one I used last time I went a-job hunting. I learned then that when your interviewer recognizes that you used TeX, it's usually a good sign.

Can you share the template?

Well, it's compiled using XeLaTeX, which really is necessary for the template. It also requires a bunch of LaTeX packages I had to track down through Google I think, so you'd have to do the same. Also you should get the Fontin font, or another professional font (Fontin is free though). Here's the tex file used to render my PDF resume: http://pastie.org/1173737

> Well, it's compiled using XeLaTeX

That's fine, I'm already using XeLaTeX. Thanks.

Nice one pager.

Here is also a nice one using XeTeX and some cool fonts: http://nitens.org/taraborelli/cvtex

Or this interesting two-column-CV movement: http://www.cv-templates.info/2009/05/advanced-two-column-lat...

That first link is great! I kind of hate the look of Computer Modern, but like LaTeX, so I've been using Hoefler Text (and before that, Baskerville) in my resume for the last five years.

Thanks for sharing this template. I'm not sure if the OP is the writer of the CV, but I just have to comment on the CV itself. They've done some good stuff, but this CV doesn't show it off at all. To wit:

4 pages! The last page only lists an almost certainly irrelevant security clearance? And it looks like one solid wall of short snippets. Where's the meat? What did you really study? Why should anyone care which conferences you've been to? I'd rather see a three sentence abstract of your three best papers. Which scholarships are you most proud of and which could have been awarded to a bag of lettuce?

I know you will have a cover letter with it, and a CV will be skim-read, but as the reason to create a CV in LaTeX is to intrigue and delight, so the content itself should also titillate and ultimately, sell!

This looks like most academic CVs I've seen. This is a domain-accepted/encouraged practice. Moreover, this guy is a newly minted academic; you should see how long they get when you stick around: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/vita.pdf (Large PDF Warning)

Definitely domain-accepted, but that doesn't mean it's necessary or best. I'm applying to post-doc positions now and I'm personally banking on the theory that short and sweet (with condensed goodness and moderate humility) makes a better CV.

Of course.. I could be totally wrong. Maybe I'll hedge my bets and apply to a few places with a bloated CV.

Yes, Knuth has done an incredible number of things and his CV reflects that. For mere mortals, a CV that long looks kind of kooky and you can bet a recruiter is not going to print more than the first few pages.

However, I expect you are right about academia and these are acceptable, although I'd still put a summary of my best work on the first page. BTW, an effective CV for Knuth would surely be:

Donald Knuth

and I'm not sure it needs the Donald.

Yes, his name brand is strong enough. Though I guess Knuth doesn't use his CV for getting hired.

Ill probably clean it up and package it tomorrow, but people are free to take my html template as well.

http://daleharvey.org/

I like the clean look, though the yellow-green links are hard on my eyes. I'll definitely be using this in the near future. Thank you!

You can use my CV as a template too:

http://yury.name/media/lifshits-cv.tex

Result: http://yury.name/media/lifshits-cv.pdf

Too many fonts! I like this better:

http://linux.dsplabs.com.au/resume-writing-example-latex-tem...

Overall, it looks very professional, if not a little boring.

Just out of curiosity: you finished a MSc in 5 years but a PhD in 2 years?

Where I come from (Sweden) it's the exact way around :)

Judging by his year of birth, he did a 5 year undergrad/MSc program.

Yes. I did 5-year diploma program (it's closer to Master than to Bachelor), then completed PhD in two years. I had the same advisor at both places, so the large part of my PhD thesis was done during undergrad years.

This is better than most LaTeX CVs I've seen, but I'd still only call it decent looking at best. Got my hopes up.

What would you recommend to do CVs in? Would you be willing to share what yours looks like?

When I had to make my first (reasonably) professional looking CV while applying for undergrad Co-Op jobs last Winter, I chose to do it Latex and tweaked the moderncv template (http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/modernc...).

Since nearly everyone else's resume is written in Word or some other word processor, every employer noted that it was exceptionally well done.

Time well spent : ).

I've had problems with my moderncv based CV. Some companies want the CV to be in DOC.

On the one hand I could just say that I don't want to work in such a company, but when it's the recruiter and not the company demanding it, I don't really know what to do.

(At the moment I'll just send them a link to one of the PDF to DOC sites that are all over internet.)

I've used latex2rtf for such things, followed by some light manual fixups and saving as .doc. It's annoying and I tend to consider if I really want to apply to such a company or not, but sometimes it is worth the extra hassle.

This is my favorite LaTeX CV template: http://linux.dsplabs.com.au/resume-writing-example-latex-tem...

I prefer the 2 column layout it uses, the left column for the section headings and the right column for information. I think it looks unique and definitely not something created in a word processor.

I'm a big fan of CurVe: http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/curve/

Among its other nice features, it makes it easy to custom compile your CV for a specific purpose.

I like Curve exactly for that feature. You can have multiple versions, e.g., with or without mugshot (photos are standard in Europe and considered weird in the US). And depending on whether you're sending this to industry or academic people, you either put in a short list of the "most interesting" publications or the foot-long full publications list, or the other way round for "open-source software I'm involved in".

To be really convinced, I'd need to see how it gets translated into HTML as well. That was a weak spot with LaTeX last I remember - which was admittedly a while ago.

Having your resume in an easy-to-see-at-a-glance format is not optional, in my opinion.

Then surely you could come up with a little script which translate a source CV in HTML, in LaTeX, and in nicely formatted plain text. You could also avoid some work by using something like Markdown.

Scripts like that exist, but didn't work so well last time I checked, so I currently use open office, which can output both pdfs and html, even if the pdf output is not as good looking as LaTeX.

Err, I talked about writing such a script.

I don't think it's quite as easy as you make it out to be.

If you want to make something configurable, useful for many people besides yourself, then it may not be trivial. But I was talking about making something tailored to your needs.

Now to the specifics, the only semi-serious difficulty I see is parsing the source code. Once you've done that, printing is really easy, even when you make it customizable. I've done that with HTML[1].

[1]: http://www.loup-vaillant.fr/projects/ussm

Wow, right on time. Thank you HN.

And also, I wonder how HN CV tips would look like.

All of these seem very targeted towards people coming from academia. I have always put work experience up at the top as it has been the bulk of what employers care about.

Sure, but that should be independent of the TeX template. At least in the few I looked at, you can create sections with any title in any order.

Since we are all adding our own, here's my contribution: Source: http://www.thomasdimson.com/res.tex Results: http://www.thomasdimson.com/res.pdf

The template may lack some negative space but I think it is pretty reasonable. The content is crusty and questionable :)

Shouldn't the f in food be capitalised?

It is odd what the eye is drawn to in these situations. Fixed and thank you.

I tried a few LaTeX templates on CTAN awhile ago and settled on simplecv:

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/simplec...

It's fairly boring, but simple to use and flexible. Best, it makes good use of the space on the page without looking too cluttered.

I used this template when I redid my résumé a few months back. I like how it does away with those extraneous bullets and lines found on many résumés; it is uncluttered, elegant, and very readable.

You should also have a look at the currvita package. It's documentation also has some general information about writing CVs.

Why not make it a fully fledged site.

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