Don’t Use a PDF Resume — CyberCoders Resume Tip of the Week

When sending out your resume electronically, avoid using a PDF! Your best bet is to stick with a Word doc.

Why? Fair question.

Before your resume ever gets in front of a hiring manager or recruiter, it has to get past a formidable gatekeeper – the Applicant Tracking System. In many cases, an ATS cannot read a PDF.

Job search expert Rich DeMatteo explains in a blog post: There are roughly 55 different ATS vendors on the market.  Of those 55, only a few are able to translate the information from your PDF resume into their system.

But all Word documents may not be equal!

Sarah White, who DeMatteo cites, suggests saving your resume in the .doc extension, rather than .docx, because systems with older versions of Word may not be able to open files with the .docx extension.

Adapted from Ritika Trikha’s Resume Tip Tuesday