CVs - Word or PDFs?

[Peter Loew]

Here's one I've been wondering about.

When asked to send your latest CV to an agent, do you send a Word copy or a PDF copy and why?

It makes better sense to send a PDF, but I've so far been using Word.

P

[rsingh]

Send a Word version. PDF will only confuse the poor souls. If you are feeling vindictive, send them a scanned copy of a fax version in bitmap format.

[bored]

Word only, if you're sending it to an agent. The agent will need to remove your name and insert the agency's header in the CV, so if he can't do it it'll go straight to the bin.

[NickFitz]

Send a Word version. PDF will only confuse the poor souls.

WHS.

The other year I sent a CV to an agent in RTF, which is of course a native Word format - just not capable of carrying Word macros, and therefore safer. The agent phoned me back complaining that as the filename didn't end in ".doc", he couldn't open it - of course, he hadn't even tried, and refused to do so, insisting that he could only open ".doc" files.

Word examines the file, rather than the filename, to determine what format it's in. So I renamed the RTF file to have ".doc" rather than ".rtf" on the end (didn't even re-open it, just renamed it in Explorer) and emailed it to him again.

He phoned me back a few minutes later to let me know that, now that I'd sent it in ".doc" format, he'd been able to open it OK

[Peter Loew]

Hilarious.

I guess Word it will continue to be. I ask because PDF keeps the CV's pristine format and looks very presentable, I always found it odd that you would send somebody the actual document rather than the 'product' but people don't think like that when it comes to word processing.

Think of it like code; you compile and show the product to the customer in the form of a prototype or webpage etc, you don't show them your code!

P

[NickFitz]

Hilarious.

I guess Word it will continue to be. I ask because PDF keeps the CV's pristine format and looks very presentable, I always found it odd that you would send somebody the actual document rather than the 'product' but people don't think like that when it comes to word processing.

Think of it like code; you compile and show the product to the customer in the form of a prototype or webpage etc, you don't show them your code!

P

The thing is that agencies will actually remove your contact information before sending your CV to the client. They assume that the client is a dishonourable scumbag who will go directly to you, cutting them out of the loop, if they don't. So they need to have it in an editable format.

This also means that all the trouble you went to making sure the page breaks were in the right place was a waste of time

One thing I do is include my web site's URL in the header or footer - most of them don't know Word well enough to be able to edit headers and footers, and as the default view has them greyed out, they usually don't notice it

[DS23]

nice tip fitzy! cv's being amended forthwith.

[TheFaQQer]

I have enough clues in my CV that enables anyone to find me from a google search easily enough

(e.g. "Author of XYZ training course")

[bored]

One thing I do is include my web site's URL in the header or footer - most of them don't know Word well enough to be able to edit headers and footers, and as the default view has them greyed out, they usually don't notice it

If they copy&paste your CV into their own template (I bet that's what most of them do), then unfortunately the headers will be gone.

In any case, it's all black magic, different agencies will have different priorities etc. But it's definitely better to have the CV in Word format than in PDF.

[NickFitz]

If they copy&paste your CV into their own template (I bet that's what most of them do), then unfortunately the headers will be gone.

Every time I've seen the client's printout of my CV at an interview (which I think is almost every interview I've ever done) it's been my original document with the contact details cut out, and sometimes the agency contact information pasted in instead (hence mucking up the page breaks).