[ghshephard]

Of course, that goes both way. Any engineer so fixated on not using Microsoft Word, and unwilling to submit a resume in the format requested by their potential employer, might not work out well in a number of environments where they might gasp be required to use operating systems, applications, and methodologies that they were unfamiliar with, or downright opposed to.

Works out well for everyone - so, to some degree, a valid filter.

[danudey]

I don't have anything that can (reliably) create .doc files that consistently view the same in MS Word as they do in the application I've created them (I create and update my resume in Pages on the Mac). Creating a PDF means I know what it'll look like when they see it.

I once sent a .doc file to a potential employer, and when I arrived for my interview I saw that the font it had fallen back to (since it didn't have the exact one I'd used) was an aliased version of Courier for some ridiculous reason. It was ugly and difficult to read, the spacing was entirely incorrect, and it was generally a mess. If I were an employer and received a resume that looked like that, I'd surely count it as points against them (though it's possible that accepting Word document resumes means that this happens frequently and you get used to it).

I don't mind using MS Word at work, but I don't use it at home and have no intention of paying for it, so being able to provide someone a reliable, working document is not a guarantee unless I'm using PDF.

[imrehg]

Google Docs? LibreOffice? Just make it simple, if they are about box ticking then it does not matter at all how well your resume looks (as e.g. a PDF version would).

I mean I feel your pain, Word Docs give me the cold shivers, but there are some tools.

[danssig]

None of those things will produce a word document that looks exactly in Word like it did when I created it. This is the problem.

[matwood]

Word doesn't produce a document that looks exactly like the document you created unless only open and view that document on the same version of word you created it on. Everyone, even HR/business types, inherently know this from their years of dealing with Word.

In short, if your format messes up a little bit no one cares.

[billybob]

And yet, having your format messed up is completely unnecessary. We have this format called PDF which exists solely to make the same document look the same for everybody. It works on every major platform and is supposed by lots of software.

Unless the HR department intends to edit your resume, why on earth wouldn't they accept PDF?

[tomjen3]

I am not sure it works as a filter - I personally wouldn't spend my time making a .doc resume since it would enable HR drones to "enhance" it.

Yes that can also be done with a PDF, but it is difficult enough that they don't.

[ghshephard]

" personally wouldn't spend my time making a .doc resume since it would enable HR drones to "enhance" it."

You don't think that filtering out people who have issues with the HR organization processing resume's isn't a "Filter?"

[mkramlich]

it's a filter. just not a filter for qualities I want to see in a potential employer, or, in potential co-workers. i want to see intelligence, flexibility, efficiency, substance, creativity, modernity, human-friendly systems and an emphasis on ROWE, not warm bodies in seats like clockwork, or conformity. Word? I mean, in a world where PDF and plain text exists? And non-MS/agnostic systems, and HTML? Seriously?

[forensic]

A computer scientist against clockwork and conformity?

All technology is about making stuff work like clockwork. That's like.. what it's all about. This applies to human processes just as much as machine ones.

Conformity is one way to create good clockwork machines.

Your reasons strike me as childish. Word is still the best word processor by far. Personally I respect people who use Word because it means they're willing to use the best software despite it being associated with Microsoft. Word for Mac is about a billion times more sophisticated than Pages.

Anyway to each his own.

[javert]

What? Latex is way more sophisticated than Word. Forcing me to use Word rather than Latex is childish.

I'm not trying to mock you, I just really feel this way.

[nerfhammer]

Not everyone owns a copy of Word these days

[natrius]

That's ridiculous. There are plenty of programs that output MS Word format, or even RTF.

[danudey]

Sure, but most of them aren't 100%, and tend to lose formatting nuances. My resume looks awful when exported to MS Word, so I always have to load it up in a pirated copy or on someone else's computer, tweak it there, and then send it on. I hate the idea of using commercial software that I haven't paid for, so it just irks me that this is required.

[tzury]

dude, in some companies these days, you better off not mentioning MS WORD as an integral part of your toolbox.

Want an impressive resume? Think latex!

Want an even more impressive? Build up your resume and portfolio online.

[quanticle]

Yeah, but the MS Word format is vague enough, that the only way to ensure that someone else sees the same document you're seeing is to ensure that they're opening the document on the same version of Word, with the same OS and the same fonts that you have.

[EricBerglund]

True, but Open/Libre Office is freely available and can save to Word formats.

[georgieporgie]

In my experience, for anything but the simplest document, OpenOffice will absolutely mangle all formatting.

[chollida1]

True, but I can create a word doc using Google Docs for free.