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Tyler V. (he/him)
Tyler V. (he/him)

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DevDiscuss Resume Stats

During #DevDiscuss last night, we discussed resumes! I posed this question, which received more attention than expected:

So being the math-minded person that I am, I started to wonder what the responses would look like in a Pie chart (OK, maybe I also wanted a reason to play with Affinity Designer).

Pie Chart showing the statistics: 22% Latex, 10% Google Drive, 9% HTML & CSS, 8% Word/Pages, 6% Canva, 5% Indesign, 5% LinkedIn, 3% Markdown, and 28% Other

My quick notes about the data:

  • At the time of review, I pulled 207 responses indicating a resume creation tool of choice.
  • Latex was a VERY popular response. I suspect this is higher within the developer community than outside it.
  • Personally, I never would have thought to use tools like Illustrator/Canva, but many others have! I loved the variety of responses received - There are so many interesting tools out there for resume generation.

What do you use for your resume? Feel free to join in here, or on Twitter!

Top comments (24)

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nanythery profile image
Nadine M. Thêry

Before coming into the developers' world, I used Microsoft Word and later, Canva.
Now that I am a bit more efficient with HTML and CSS I can tell that I think it's less time-consuming to program a website with your resume and format rather than any other of the tools I mentioned.
However, if you have absolutely no idea of them I think Canva is always a good option to make fancy designs with not much complication.

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quinncuatro profile image
Henry Quinn

I keep my "resume" on my website but I've heard plenty of employers say they want a printer friendly version. So I made a resume on Google Docs and linked the PDF download link to a "Printer Friendly Resume" tag on the site.

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terabytetiger profile image
Tyler V. (he/him)

A few of the responses mention using @media print css queries to make the page print in a friendly way!

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quinncuatro profile image
Henry Quinn

That's one way to do it. But my website looks (visually, at least) pretty different than my actual resume that I give to potential employers.

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terabytetiger profile image
Tyler V. (he/him)

I've loved Canva the small amount that I've used it for twitter cards/Dev header images 😁

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justsharkie profile image
/*Sharkie*/

I use a little program called Inkscape which is basically free, SVG-focused Illustrator that I absolutely LOVE. It lets me be as creative and have 100% control of the layout. And fun fact about me - I'm totally a control freak. 😂

I just export my resume to a PDF. Simple, readable all over the shop, and lovely.

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turnerj profile image
James Turner

I've started getting more into Inkscape recently with some other design-y stuff I needed to do - never thought of doing a resume in it though. Sounds like a great idea for those that want that design control!

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terabytetiger profile image
Tyler V. (he/him)

never thought of doing a resume in it though

My thoughts exactly!

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autoferrit profile image
Shawn McElroy

I have used google docs for a while and then export to PDF. But every now and then I get a recruiter that wants it in Word format. Then I have to export the resume to word and fix the issues. Fun stuff.

I guess I could just tell them I don't have it in Word format...

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ssimontis profile image
Scott Simontis

They erase your name and all identifying information, so you become "Thompson Technology Candidate 3" or something like that. They replace company names with "mid-sized consulting firm" or "civil engineering firm" or the like; hopefully they get it right and make it sound attractive. Really seedy recruiters will change job titles and skills.

Before I give them a Word copy, I make them agree that they will send all proposed modifications to me and that I have veto power. I have no way of enforcing that, unfortunately, so I have thought about digital watermarks so I would have more of an idea of what is happening to my resume. I have to think that one through more.

Generally, the firms that ask for this are low-quality firms and it is an indicator to me that I should politely decline and walk away. If they're paranoid that you're going to steal their cut, they don't trust you. In these sorts of situations, my reasoning is that people who can't trust others often are not trustworthy themselves.

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autoferrit profile image
Shawn McElroy

That's interesting, I had not thought of that before. I will have to ask that next time one wants a Word version of my resume.

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toastking profile image
Matt Del Signore

LaTex is great because you can use version control. If saves me so much time on edits. If you're not doing anything fancy design wise I highly recommend it.

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quinncuatro profile image
Henry Quinn

I know some folks who use LaTex and keep alllll of their work history on it. Then they just uncomment bits of it as needed to customize it for specific jobs.

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natonathan profile image
Nathan Tamez • Edited

I am currently using JSON to store the data for my new CV. I then import the JSON file to my Vue website that I am currently building.

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terabytetiger profile image
Tyler V. (he/him)

🙌 Vue!

I've been diving into Vue recently and love it so much!

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natonathan profile image
Nathan Tamez

At work i’m working on a angularJS(v1) project but at home i’m using Vue. I like it, it’s definitely lighter the angular as it’s not a full framework. I want to use Nuxt.js at some point. I have a lot of projects though so it may take some time. 🤣🤣

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flrnd profile image
Florian Rand

This is very interesting Tyler! Do you know what crossed my mind? I'd love to see recruiters preferences vs people resumes. That would be quite enlightning!

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terabytetiger profile image
Tyler V. (he/him)

Based on the recruiter responses from the dev discuss, I think most just expect a .pdf output.

I'd love to see a study done on if certain apps cause recruiters to be more likely to look closer at one resume over another.

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flrnd profile image
Florian Rand • Edited

I'd love to see a study done on if certain apps cause recruiters to be more likely to look closer at one resume over another.

Exactly my thought!

Few months ago found an online resume app, all the templates they were promoting were very clean, black and white, no graphics, very very neutral. I don't remember the name sorry! but called my attention that they said it was backed by a lot of research with real recruiters.

I Can't say if it's bs to attract users or don't, but since then I'm very curious about this topic.

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mtallerico1 profile image
Mike Tallerico

Interesting article! I found one called Resumonk that I really like. But I have used Illustrator in the past.

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ashleemboyer profile image
Ashlee (she/her)

I used Gatsby to make a page super quickly, and then did a CTRL-P and saved it as a PDF. 😉

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

I always read "resume" as "to continue". As in, "DevDiscuss (whatever that is) begin generating stats again."

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terabytetiger profile image
Tyler V. (he/him) • Edited

Isn't English great! 😜

DevDiscuss is the weekly twitter chat hashtag, held on Tuesdays at 9PM EST - I highly recommend joining in if the timing works for you!

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terabytetiger profile image
Tyler V. (he/him)

My spreadsheet of data for anyone interested: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gO...