Comment by krageon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by krageon | Hacker News Reader

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You say it is not machine-readable, but it comes with an XML representation of the PDF embedded in the PDF (so that you can re-upload it later to edit it). I'd say that is plenty readable.

> [...] it gives zero clues on the creativity of the candidate.

I wasn't going to tailor my CV to your company anyway (and I haven't met a single human being in my field that does). At least this way you can be sure it is readable and contains relevant information.

> [...] creating a document is a skill that is a must have in our field.

Which should be done with latex, or at the very least another standardised markup language. Not anything which might remotely approach "creative" (i.e. indesign or photoshop).

> If the CV isn't structured, contains spelling mistakes (yes, really) or shows you have no clue on how to use a text-processing software, then it's already a negative point for said candidate (IMHO).

You are essentially pre-selecting for people that share your cultural background. That makes this (IMHO) a racist hiring policy. You should always look at why you feel certain indicators are good indicators. And what you might be missing out on by weighing them as you do.

I tailor all my resumes to the companies I want to work at. Each have different role descriptions and things they value.

If I want to commit a few hours of my life working there, I find it valuable to do some legwork beforehand.

> You are essentially pre-selecting for people that share your cultural background.

I don't think that creating a decent (not perfect!) document means that they match my cultural background and I honestly don't consider it racist, in any way.

I don't see any reason on why literally the only document that has a stake in saying whether you continue with some interviews or not should look bad or contain obvious mistakes. It's like if you were giving away business cards with your name spelled wrong, with a wrong phone number or with a yellow text on a red / orange background.

I've seen some CVs with rather obvious mistakes (e.g: mispelled technology names, Comic Sans MS, 180deg rotated profile picture, spelling mistakes in their native language, issues with dates and so on...).

I really think that if you care about applying for a job, the bare minimum you should do is to spend some time to re-read your CV (at least once) or ask your friends for suggestions.

> You are essentially pre-selecting for people that share your cultural background.

It's not like you have to type this kind of document ad hoc while being watched. Such a document usually is carefully crafted beforehand. There are tools for performing automated spell checks. Not using those has nothing to do with cultural background.

What kind of culture has poor spelling as some kind of central tenet?

Americans, if you're from a British background, and Brits, if you're from an American background.

Other than in a tongue-in-cheek manner or by the occasional inveterate prescriptivist, neither variation is considered poor spelling.

Indubitably

I was once angrily told off by a professor from the other side of the ocean for referring to “less data” instead of “fewer data”. He absolutely would have marked off an applicant for making that comment on their resume.

I still defend that a single datapoint whose uncertainty is a real number is an inherently uncountable value and that “less data” was the appropriate phrasing.

This is just worse than being a grammar nazi IMHO. It's not even about being correct - both representations are OK.

If we're really nit-picking, we can say that the language is shaped by the people speaking it, and thus Google Trend could be a good starting point: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=Less%20data,Fewer...

It seems like "less data" is far more common. But again, we're nit-picking, and this is taking my initial post to the extreme limit. If he would have marked off an applicant for such a thing, he really shouldn't evaluate CVs in the first place, as he would be doing some kind of gatekeeping towards people with the exact same "ideals".

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