You found a beautiful, open-source LaTeX resume template. It promised pixel-perfect typography and the kind of professional polish that word processors could only dream of. You, a person who values precision and structure, chose the right path: plain text.
But a few hours in, you found yourself on Stack Exchange, debugging a package conflict just to move a date a few millimeters to the right.
This isn't a story about resumes. It's a story about a trap that smart people fall into every day: choosing the most powerful tool for the simplest job.
The Friction Tax
The principle behind LaTeX is noble: separate what you write from how it looks. It’s a rebellion against the unpredictable nature of WYSIWYG editors.
But this noble pursuit comes with a hidden cost I call the Friction Tax.
You pay this tax every time you update a skill or rephrase a bullet point. You run a full compilation cycle, holding your breath, hoping a single misplaced character didn't just break the entire document. You’ve embraced the right philosophy, but you're wasting your most valuable time on its most complex execution.
Both LaTeX and Markdown are built on the same foundation, but they value different things. LaTeX values absolute control. Markdown values absolute simplicity. For a resume, simplicity is the smarter investment.
The quality of the final PDF isn’t the issue. It’s the friction required to get there.
Your Resume is a Document, Not a Software Project
When you use a LaTeX template, you become the maintainer of a tiny, fragile codebase. Your goal is to get hired, not to win a typography award.
Markdown's simplicity makes it great for resumes
Consider the workflow for a simple date change:
LaTeX: Hunt through commands, change text, compile, check for errors, re-compile.
Markdown: Type in a field. Done.
Markdown: The API for Your Resume
Markdown isn't a step down from LaTeX. It is the optimized, distilled version of the same plain-text philosophy. It’s what remains when you strip away every layer of unnecessary complexity.
You still get the clean, professional, and consistent PDF you want. You just skip the code.
A simple # tells a machine, “This is a major section,” and a good builder renders it perfectly. It enforces consistency for you, so you can’t break the layout by accident.
Your mindset is right. You understand that structure and content are what matter. But the tool you chose doesn't respect your time.
I built a simple Markdown resume builder that handles all the formatting and lets me focus on the content. Give it a try!
Top comments (0)