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Comment by fnordfnordfnord | Hacker News Reader

I try my best to break people of that awful habit. I also find that I'm usually happy enough dealing only with people who can manage to open a pdf (or any other non-proprietary format).

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Yes. I hate receiving documents in .docx or any other proprietary format, especially if I have not agreed to that format prior to receiving them. I like plain text if at all possible. I'll happily receive PDFs because I can view them under Linux/BSD, but others piss me off. People THINK MS Word is the de facto business standard. It isn't. Text and PDF are the standards. Never had issues with either.

I had a friend tell me my CV should be in PDF and locked down to prevent recruiters and others from changing it to something other than the original. I know recruiters are fond of changing things up without informing you.

>locked down to prevent recruiters and others from changing it to something other than the original

Can you elaborate? Why would they want to change your CV?

Either to make it better (recruitment agencies, etc), or to make it worse (we want to hire <x> but we have to hire the best-qualified person)

Unscrupulous recruiters will sometimes add extra skills or bulk up your experience.

You can "print" the text file to a pdf for your CV and get the best of both worlds. My department only allows pdf uploads for CVs, so that's my approach.

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