Opinion: Candidates who Submit Resumes in .PDF Format

I find this to be a very interesting study in the mindset of a candidate. When I first began receiving resumes in this format, I took it as an indictment of recruiters and their moral compass.

The more I have thought about it, I now see this as the ultimate sign of honesty and integrity on behalf of a candidate. By "locking" their resume in to a .PDF - they are essentially saying "This is who I am, and I am not changing."

I appreciate this very much, and I find myself much more giddy with anticipation when a new contact presents him/herself with this type of file.

Any thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Randy Levinson on February 2, 2010 at 12:12pm

When I was in between jobs last year I was being careful to save my resume for sending in doc format (instead of docx) because I knew how disheartening it is to not even have a readable resume. It took me a short while before I started using PDF and the only reason was to make sure it was readable by the recipient. The thought of recruiter integrity never entered my mind. I will say that it does show another (very thin) layer of computer skills to get a resume in that format, especially if it doesn't read like it was written by a service rather than the candidate.

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Permalink Reply by Craig Fisher on February 2, 2010 at 1:01pm

Chris, thanks for posting this question. I had a lively discussion on Twitter yesterday with several great Tweeps about this very subject. Many were under the impression that .PDF is either the standard or preferred format. Wrong. I have plenty to say about this subject, so I put it in a blog post for you here http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blogs/the-best-format-for-your

Cheers, CF (@fishdogs)