Sending resumes as text only / attachments

[sojourner]

I'm interested to know opinions on the best way to send resumes when applying for jobs at large companies.

Often, vaccancy announcements don't specify which resume format they prefer to receive. In this scenario, do you think it is preferable to send:

1. Text only with line breaks style within body of email

2. Word file attachments

3. .pdf files

?

Some career sites advise sending all of the above, but my concern is that it will look junior or unprofessional to bombard a recruiter / hr manager with so much information.

My big concern is not being considered at all if the company doesn't open attachments, etc...

[Rascal]

I would go with the Word file so it can be nicely formatted etc.

[irishstu]

I would go with the Word file so it can be nicely formatted etc.

Me too, with a covering letter as part of the email body.

[Lord Lucan]

Word file attachment, no silly fonts or formatting. Nicely spaced out. The American MBA "I must squeeze my resume onto one page" is a pain in the arse for HR people.

[jlick]

The recruiters I've dealt with in the past have always asked for Word format resumes only. (Even those looking for UNIX wizards. )

[Brendon]

I usually send mine as PDF, and include a link to an HTML version on my website in the cover letter.

The reason is simple - I use a system called reStructuredText (reST) to do all my documents stuff. The PDFs it generates via LaTeX are just gorgeous - big margins, beautiful spacing, good fonts. On screen it looks great, printed out it looks a million times better than anything I can hack up in Word.

It also gives me the HTML version for no extra work

[Lord Lucan]

I usually send mine as PDF, and include a link to an HTML version on my website in the cover letter.

The reason is simple - I use a system called reStructuredText (reST) to do all my documents stuff. The PDFs it generates via LaTeX are just gorgeous - big margins, beautiful spacing, good fonts. On screen it looks great, printed out it looks a million times better than anything I can hack up in Word.

It also gives me the HTML version for no extra work

A nightmare for a recruitment agency. But of course fine for sending into companies on spec. Resumes are copied and pasted into the recruiter's own database and format. They have to save the pdf as an rtf file and then deal with the resultant mess.

Any headhunter will thank you for a plain Word file, Arial and Times New Roman headings, no underlining, italics if you must, and generous spacing.

[Brendon]

I usually send mine as PDF, and include a link to an HTML version on my website in the cover letter.

The reason is simple - I use a system called reStructuredText (reST) to do all my documents stuff. The PDFs it generates via LaTeX are just gorgeous - big margins, beautiful spacing, good fonts. On screen it looks great, printed out it looks a million times better than anything I can hack up in Word.

It also gives me the HTML version for no extra work

A nightmare for a recruitment agency. But of course fine for sending into companies on spec. Resumes are copied and pasted into the recruiter's own database and format. They have to save the pdf as an rtf file and then deal with the resultant mess.

Any headhunter will thank you for a plain Word file, Arial and Times New Roman headings, no underlining, italics if you must, and generous spacing.

They could probably just copy and paste from the HTML version, which has identical content. I admit though that recruitment agencies feature nowhere on my list of concerns

[Lord Lucan]

I usually send mine as PDF, and include a link to an HTML version on my website in the cover letter.

The reason is simple - I use a system called reStructuredText (reST) to do all my documents stuff. The PDFs it generates via LaTeX are just gorgeous - big margins, beautiful spacing, good fonts. On screen it looks great, printed out it looks a million times better than anything I can hack up in Word.

It also gives me the HTML version for no extra work

A nightmare for a recruitment agency. But of course fine for sending into companies on spec. Resumes are copied and pasted into the recruiter's own database and format. They have to save the pdf as an rtf file and then deal with the resultant mess.

Any headhunter will thank you for a plain Word file, Arial and Times New Roman headings, no underlining, italics if you must, and generous spacing.

They could probably just copy and paste from the HTML version, which has identical content. I admit though that recruitment agencies feature nowhere on my list of concerns

Yup. And a pdf ensures that even if your target is using Letter paper and bonkers margins in Word your CV still looks good. I suppose a pdf file and a Word file would be the best of all?

[Yellow Cartman]

Are you sending to companies in Taiwan or North America/Europe? If in Taiwan, suggest to put your picture in there as well. Depends on the industry and position. Also in Asia, many-paged resumes is a good thing, more information, the better.