It's because most recruiters want to be able to easily copy and paste data from your resume into reports for their clients and that doesn't work well from PDFs.
However, I don't want to work for a company that uses external recruiters that put stupid, restrictive requirements on applications either because they are too lazy to do their job well for the $10k+ commission they get for new placements.
When I arrived in London I sent my CV as a PDf to a number of recruiters. Each one requested that I send a word copy, something that was difficult as I had written it in Latex.
I found out later that they want it in word so they can edit it, incorporate the cover letter, their own notes etc. Not a system that instilled me with confidence.
A fair number of recruiters have, or had, resume uptake systems that are/were based on VBA macros and required Word docs. I'm not sure if some remnant of these systems remain, but essentially, yes, they want an editable version of your resume.
Hrm. I may need to knock the "Word" format output option off my resume generator.
mk4ht is your friend here. Its part of tex live, and can handle most formatting. mk4ht oolatex yourcv.tex is really useful. Its not perfect, but its better than writing in word or open/libre office
That's okay as long as your skills are in demand and you have luxury to pick what you like. Will one refuse to demonstrate her website to an important person if by accident he only has some old version of the browser?
There are plenty of people who would submit in whatever format is required to land the job/contract/anything they desparately need and that positive quality is called 'perseverance' :)
The problem is even companies that may be ok still can have dinosaur recruiters, once a company is of a certain size is inevitable that not everyone they employ will be technical and for companies that are smaller they probably aren't able or interested in devoting technical resources to streamline the recruiting process
However, I don't want to work for a company that uses external recruiters that put stupid, restrictive requirements on applications either because they are too lazy to do their job well for the $10k+ commission they get for new placements.