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Comment by cjohnson318 | Hacker News Reader

LaTeX for your resume?! If someone sumgly sends me a .TEX resume I have to (struggle to) compile instead of a .PDF, then I'm deleting the email and never responding. Yeah, I know LaTeX, but you've totally over-engineered the solution to the problem of writing a resume, and you've already increased my workload instead of decreasing it, even before getting on the payroll! Hard pass.

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Oh goodness, I hope that's not how it came across - I hoped the idea that it had to be compiled into PDF before sending was clear!

Don't get me wrong, I would also not open a TEX file in the ~10 seconds I give each CV

Oh, okay. I just see LaTeX as a math academics thing, about as useful and difficult as writing HTML by hand. Now, if someone had leveraged LaTeX in a real system or automation, I'd find that interesting.

> as useful and difficult as writing HTML by hand

How else do you write html? I haven’t used dreamweaver in 20 years by now.

> Oh goodness, I hope that's not how it came across - I hoped the idea that it had to be compiled into PDF before sending was clear!

It was clear. You even linked your PDF resume as an example. The GP's interpretation is just bizzare.

Was clear to me too.

I took this as meaning that it should be obvious from the layout that it was a LaTeX document, but I agree, this is not something that i've ever considered when filtering CVs.

You can totally see when a résumé was created in LaTeX and I always counted that as a bonus.

On the other hand, that dude is going to write the FAQ in LaTeX and then complain nobody else contributes.

Write it in Markdown and let Pandoc turn it into LaTeX or whatever you desire

Yeah, it's more a case of, "me and probably 10% of hiring managers are massively biased in favour of LaTeX if we see it, and the other 90% won't care either way"

Uhhh..probably you and .2% of hiring managers. I've never cared when hiring, and have never heard this advice anywhere but this post. No offense, but if it was as common as 10%, recruiters and bloggers would be suggesting it left and right.

10% is being exceptionally generous I think. Anecdotally I've never heard of a single manager getting a crap how your PDF was produced, and a lot of the hiring and recruiting agencies will probably end up snapping the data out of your PDF and converting it to some standardized format, so the Latex will be completely rendered out.

To me this feels like a case of a publisher passing on a novel because the author wrote it using notepad.exe versus vim.

What are some signs a résumé was created in LaTex?

The font will be Computer Modern, that's the most obvious one.

Basically this; the advice could just as easily read "use Computer Modern font" but that wouldn't get as much controversy/engagement

Everyone seems to be missing the main benefit of using LaTeX: it creates professional-looking documents. That is its whole purpose. I use Adobe Garamond Pro in my LaTeX résumé, and while I'm sure nobody recognizes that it's LaTeX, the document just looks sharp.

Perfectly aligned paragraphs on the left and the right. Other packages produce ragged line ends and/or ridiculous spacing between words (Word’s justify)

I certainly acknowledge some degree of bias on my part, but it's definitely the quickest way to get me on-side before I even read the words

> but I agree, this is not something that i've ever considered when filtering CVs.

As a proficient LaTeX user, this is the stupidest take I ever saw on resume tips. I mean, your skills and experience do not vary with the document system you used to generate your CV. Some hiring managers swear by MS Word templates, other hiring managers ask for Europass, others ask you to fill in a form and request a cover letter. It would be stupid to assess the suitability of any candidate on this sort of bullshit.

did i miss some part of the article suggested that?

nobody is doing or suggesting the thing that you’re freaking out about.

> LaTeX for your resume?! If someone sumgly sends me a .TEX (...)

I'm not sure you got it right. You still have a LaTeX doc if you compile it to generate a PDF. LaTeX can have a very unique and peculiar look and feel that pops up to those in the know.

I don’t think that is the message the author is sending. He is giving you tools to better augment the outcome. But not every organization gets 1k applicants. Some do not spend money on recruiting tools or advertisement. Some people might find tex funny or entertaining. Just saying. It is not intended to tailor to everyones needs.

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