Note to JobSeekers: Don’t save your resume in Office 2007 format
Published 1 year, 8 months ago in get a job, leadership + management, small businessI’ve got two job openings that I’m trying to fill:
A Sales Manager position and an Account Manager or Coordinator position (if you’re looking in Austin, shoot us your resume … contact info on those job postings - or if you can find my email address on this site (it’s on here somewhere, but I don’t want to get more spam), email me.)
Anyways, I’m trying to fill this position. And someone just sent us their resume in Office 2007 format.
I don’t have Office 2007. In fact, I’d make a bet that most people don’t have Office 2007. I’m still using Office 2003 on Windows, and Office 2004 on my Mac. So, I try to open their resume (which looks weird with the .docx extension by the way) and Word prompts me to download and install some Office 2007 backwards compatibility stuff. So I hit Okay. And the installer makes me restart my computer.
“What the fuck?” I think to myself.
And I’m thinking about hiring this person? They just cost me 20 minutes of my day. Nope, next.
So, lesson to all of you that might be job-hunting. Save your resume in a format that’s really portable. Use an older Word format, or even better… save is as a Rich Text Format (.RTF) file. That’s totally cross platform compatible, and will open in just about any text-editor, or in Word, and it’ll still look good.
Don’t use Office 2007 to send out your resume… it won’t impress people, it’ll just waste their time. Impress them by sending it in RTF.
And BAAAAD Microsoft making me restart my computer to install a converter utility.
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Better yet, send it as PDF.
BTW, OpenOffice 2.1 opens Office 2007 files. And on the PC, it’s generally a better office app than MS Office.
Agreed Adam. Thanks for the comment.
I just don’t understand why anyone would send out a document like a resume in a format that most people couldn’t open. I think it’s even worse to send it out in a format that other people can freely edit. Even barring intentional mischief, what happens if the target audience drops something on his keyboard and mangles the thing?
PDF all the way, baby.
On Adam’s note, I’m a Mac guy but my law partner is emphatically not. Since i get to make the IT decisions, we run Open Office 2.0. Everyone loves it, and we’ve never - repeat, never - had a compatibility problem except one easily-solved minor event with page numbers.
NeoOffice, however, I wouldn’t touch with *your* ten-foot pole.
Your applicant was using the most up-to-date program available and your bitching about it??!!!
Why don’t you update to: Get a FREAKIN’ Life 2.0
wouldnt want to work for you anyway.docx
Maybe you should have had your dinosaur secretary update your Office for you beforehand? Or is she still using a pneumatic typewriter?
Anyone who saves their resume in RTF format because their employer might be such a cheapass that he can’t afford to upgrade his software is an idiot. I’ll continue using my .docx’s, because, well, if I can afford it, so should the person who gives me a job.
Hold on, I’ve got a crazy idea.
Maybe, if you’re accepting electronic resumes, and you aren’t planning to accept the latest file-format from the de-facto standard office suite, you should actually list the formats you’ll accept. It seems as though you’ve wasted the time the applicant used to send in the resume, rather than the applicant wasting your time.