Getting Your Resume Read, Or Why Office 2007 Is Not Your Friend

As the CEO of a fast-growing paid search agency that’s hiring regularly, many resumes land in my in-box each week.  These are resumes at all levels: entry, mid, and senior folks.

One of my current hiring pet peeves is getting resumes in Office 2007 format.   That is, we’re seeing an increasing number of inbound resumes coming in “.docx” format.

I can’t open these resumes with one click, so I am tossing them straight into the trash.   Not even considered.   Sorry, but true.

Now, I happen to have Vista and Office ’07 at home (ugh), but I do not have these at work.   Our IT folks are holding our firm on XP and Office 2003 as long as we can hold out.   On the OS side, Vista isn’t baked enough, our IT gurus believe.  On the apps side, I fear the productivity hit of switching to Office 2007, when our amazing crew of power Excel users on our analyst staff suddenly won’t be able to find anything anymore.   (Want to pull out your hair?  Find pivot tables in Excel ’07.  Or try to format several graphs in parallel.   All the menus changed!   Argh!)

Candidates:  You know hiring managers are moving fast.   Hiring managers are looking for reasons to cull your resume.   If you want to be considered, make things easy for the hiring manager.

Sending your resume just in “.docx” comes off as rude to me.   Seeing just a “.docx” resume makes me wonder if the candidate is clueless (because she/he doesn’t realize Office 2007 isn’t broadly adopted yet), not technically savvy (because she/he doesn’t understand file types), or self-absorbed (because she/he assumes that everyone should be using the latest-and-greatest out of Redmond, just like them).   Actually, I don’t spend much time wondering, as I’ve already hit “delete” on the email and moved on.

My suggestion:   Send your resume in multiple formats.

Plain text, in-line in the email below your sig, is always good.   (I also like to see a resume well-presented in plain ascii – that suggests the candidate will be able to compose good-looking text emails.)   A PDF attachment is also good -- it shows the candidate cares enough to control the page layout and typography.   (Hint: if you use PDF, don’t PDF an ugly resume – ugh.)   Use Word if you want, but be smart and use Word 2003 (“.doc”, not “.docx”).   2007 Word can read 2003 Word seamlessly, but not the reverse, so use 2003.

Just please avoid “.docx” as your sole resume format.

Landing your dream job requires executing lots of small details right.   Choosing the wrong resume file format can derail the train before it even leaves the station.

Alan Rimm-Kaufman leads the Rimm-Kaufman Group, a paid search and web effectiveness agency located in Charlottesville Virginia.   Find Alan online at http://www.rkgblog.com

Comments

[Marios Alexandrou]

I've always wanted to use PDF for my resume for precisely the reason you suggested -- control over layout. However, my experience tells me that recruiters are fond of taking out my contact info and putting in their logos and such. Such things are easier with Word docs and I figured a PDF would get tossed.

If you receive a resume in multiple formats, what do you do with the PDF version other than note its existence?

[Harry Joiner]

Hi Marios,

Thanks for the comment. My 2 cents:

Do NOT layout your resume in a fancy format in Adobe. By all means, have a really slick resume that you can email directly to the hiring manager when you get to the Great 8. But until that point, your resume is not the best place to showcase creativity. Remember, your objective is to get the recruiter to "inhale" your resume into his database, and his database won’t work with Adobe. >Delete<

NEVER put your contact information in the header of your resume. His software can’t get to it there. Put your name, address, phone number, and email address in the resume's body, like this ...

Mary Jones
24 Redwing Road
Hockeytown, MI 30345
Phone: (425) 555-1212
Email: Mary.Jones@EmailAddress.com

[Amey]

Hi,
I just want to suggest you, if you are using word 2003, then also you can open ".docx" files.
As a technology changes we all need to upgrade our self. Better download 1 software from microsoft website to read .docx files from office 2003. It is very easy to download from Microsoft website.It will really helpful to you.
And you will not miss any good resume.

[pikul]

I agree that Windows XP is the most popular OS. Whatever There is some sense in trying others versions too. For this moment it is Windows 7 (see the link http://file.sh/Windows+7+Build+torrent.html