Reply to: PDF or Word?

[OwlHoot]

PDF, don't want some clueless agent editing and otherwise fcuking around with my CV.

I couldn't give a toss if they rewrite the whole thing provided they get me an interview. (A lot of agents copy the salient details onto their own standard format anyway.)

My CV is in RTF format, easy to update and tinker with using Wordpad.

[datestamp]

I find it a complete nightmare trying to send a cv by sms.

[Addanc]

Is this tulipe in the rtf version too? Wouldn't have thought the files were big enough.

If its a MS driven standard (it appears it is) quite possibly. Probably hides all the info in the micro dots over the "i".

[Addanc]

LXF: How do you think the Mono hooks into OpenOffice will be typically used?

MM: ... A lot of people have lots of Word documents, for example, and rendering them to PDF with Mono is far more secure than keeping them in Word, which may have all these weird security breaches in it, or show the undo history. Behind pivot tables amazing things lurk. Like in a presentation where you have a pivot table and it had your entire customer data behind it. It's actually in the file, so that if you put that on the web [manic laugher] some guy is going to find that. Whereas if you save to PDF you can be confident there's nothing in it. There are a lot of off-the-cuff uses for it. Form-filling automation, say.

Make sure you know whats in your Word CVs before your start sending it out. Is there anybody who starts a new Word doc by copying and editing an old one to save setting up styles etc?

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/mag/meeks.html

[Joe Bloggs]

What golden times?, well I don't know about other peoples experiences but when I started contracting, circa 20yrs ago, my experience was totally different to what it is now.

Myself, and the few other contractors I knew, generally visited each agency in person, a handful at most, where we would spend an hour or so chatting, followed quite often by a few drinks in a pub. The consultants then actually seemed more intent on finding the best position for you and actually phoned round their clients until they found it.

Likewise, when I was offered a position I was always taken out for drinks and a meal where again the agent and myself would sign in person. After that we would usually get invited out every few months, and almost certainly when we signed an extension.

"I have only been taken out for a meal once by an agent"

You obviously missed out!

[voron]

Yep those were the days, when you visited agencies in person and consultants actually took you out for a decent meal and drinks, before, during and many times after you'd got a contract, just to keep you sweet.

What golden times! I have only been taken out for a meal once by an agent, and I probably didn't behave as well as I usually do, spending most of the lunch sneering and insulting. Still, he was an agent and one has to maintain standards.

[Joe Bloggs]

"In the dear dead days beyond recall, I used to fax the damn thing...

Anyone remember faxes?"

You're not the only one zeitghost, before jobserve, email and all that namby pamby stuff, real contractors had to stand by the fax for a good half hour sending off their CV to agencies a week or two before their contract ended.

In fact (yes I'm that old) I can remember sending my CV by post in my very early days, timesheets as well. Though I remember one well known company I worked for that used to have in-house motorbike-couriers which I sometimes availed myself of to do such things.

Yep those were the days, when you visited agencies in person and consultants actually took you out for a decent meal and drinks, before, during and many times after you'd got a contract, just to keep you sweet.

[stackpole]

Morse code. I'm only interested in working for navy types who can bang on the hull of stricken submarines.

[threaded]

Ah yes, fax machines, when I wanted a new contract I used to set it up sending the CV to agents, it never used to get to the end of the list before I had a new contract and had to switch it to receive so the agent could give it to me baby.

[Francko]

who needs a CV anyway....word of mouth.....works fine...

I thought I have read "work of mouth"... oh well, anybody has his tricks

[GiGo]

Eons ago when my primary desktop was Linux I used to send my CV in plain text, or later, in html. The reality of the situation is that the vast majority of agents are m$ofters and will always want to tweak your CV to avoid risk of direct contracts being made / stamp their logo etc etc. So if they can't edit your CV or any extra work is involved in it whatsoever then there are 299 other candidates to choose from.

[n5gooner]

who needs a CV anyway....word of mouth.....works fine...

[Francko]

Stick to Word it's simple...rather like the Pimps...sorry! agents that I have dealt with

Plus it doesn't take much to modify a PDF or to copy the PDF content to a Word Document.*

* Although the average brain of an agent cannot handle this task easily

[steve'O]

Stick to Word it's simple...rather like the Pimps...sorry! agents that I have dealt with

[omen666]

Used to use PDF, included ltd company logo, part of big IR35 campaign, branding, company premises, leaflets etc.

But kept getting push back from agenceis.

Stick to Word now, plus more agencies have websites and internal systems that handle word better for searching.

Like them or not, its better they find you in their database.