[smikhanov]

He's not in SF, but your comment is mostly spot on. I liked this part especially:

    This first example is a docx file. It means you’re
    likely using Windows, which is a negative in the Ruby world.

Sure, file format is absolutely a right metric to use when going through resumes.

[learnstats2]

Being able to send files in an appropriate format is a communication skill, a basic skill for any employment, and .docx is almost never appropriate.

You're going to be dinged for a Word doc by some people, some of the time. You created a % chance that your job application got thrown away for something easily remedied. At least take one second to convert to a more generally-viewable PDF.

Besides which, the article is talking about code. Why would anyone cut and paste code into a Word doc at all? A waste of time for everyone involved.

[exelius]

.docx is often very appropriate; it's one of the most widely used formats out there and is readable by pretty much any word processor out there.

Agreed that it's probably not the best choice for sending code, but the author's point wasn't that it's a terrible format, just that it's a terrible format for code reviews. PDF is equally awful for the reasons the author describes (lack of syntax coloring, inability to run the code, etc.)

Though IMO the author should just be explicit about what he wants; playing mind games with people is never a good idea, and it just self-selects for people who have used GitHub professionally. Choice of SCM system is almost never up to an individual developer anyway, are you going to ding someone with otherwise great credentials because their company uses Mercurial? It takes all of an hour to learn how to use GitHub anyway.

Anyway, I echo the comments I've seen elsewhere that a guy who got his first "adult job" at 30 then hired some people less than a year later is probably not the best person to take career advice from. This guy makes a lot of novice mistakes in his interviewing practices; so take this as a perspective on how some companies do hiring and not a definitive guide of the right way to do things.

[nadams]

> Though IMO the author should just be explicit about what he wants; playing mind games with people is never a good idea, and it just self-selects for people who have used GitHub professionally.

I was thinking this exactly. Perhaps the interviewee should have asked what format - but I would argue just be professional and don't try to trip them or play mind games. Put your expectations up front in simple writing (just say "submit in github gist").

There are so many formats and mediums - if you allow the interviewee to guess what you are expecting they will most likely guess wrong.

[WDCDev]

Do you honestly want to work for an organization that would ding you for sending a .doc or .docx? I surely don't.

[rjaco31]

It might totally make you lose a few points on a company you'd be thrilled to work for though.

[bluedino]

>> .docx is almost never appropriate.

A few years back I started sending PDF copies of my resume in instead of a .doc/.docx

I had a couple places email me back asking for a copy in Word format because their HRIS system could only import Word documents or text files.

[arethuza]

".docx is almost never appropriate"

It was pretty appropriate when I applied to Microsoft last year (didn't get the job but did get hired elsewhere based on that application).

[dtnewman]

I know he wasn't referring specifically to CVs and resumes, but one problem with using .docx for those is that it won't look the same on all computers. For example, if you format something in Word on Windows, it may look slightly different when pulled up on a mac or vice versa. So you spend 30 minutes getting your resume to fit on one page, only for someone to open up your Word file on the other OS and the resume spills over by one line onto the next page. PDF is much safer to use if you need to make sure that it looks the same no matter who is opening the file.

[ionforce]

Regardless of how petty you think it is, friction is a real concern.

Any reason to disregard a resume ("Oh, it's hard open, in some format I don't understand") is just another strike against you.

I'm not saying it's a great reason. Nor is it fair. But it happens. And if you're trying to optimize for success, this is one of the parameters.

Give your resume in PS format and see how far that gets you.

[ska]

The article has problems, but that isn't one of them.

He isn't talking about a resume being sent as a docx file, he's talking about a coding example being sent as a docx file with bad formatting.