I prepared my CV in LaTeX and exported it to PDF. How to deal with a recruiter who insists on CV in Word format?

Question

FOREWORD

I prefer to create documents in formats such as LaTeX, Markdown or RMarkdown. They're platform and version (of the particular editor) independent. You can export them to good looking PDF that is (I think) de facto standard for the CV.

Unfortunately some recruiters force to "provide them an editable CV" which almost each time means a Word file. Obviously I could send them .tex file, but many of them are not familiar with such formats.

QUESTIONS

1. How to deal with such requests? I'm not very comfortable with that they're going to edit information contained in my CV. Wouldn't it be not more correct to offer them amended version of the CV myself (for example address removed)?
2. Regardless of my preferred formats / open standards, creating good looking CV in .docx, requires a license of MS Word. Obviously there're other tools (LibreOffice, Google Docs) that provides capabilities to export the result to MS Word. Even LaTeX could be converted to such format. Unfortunately, in many cases the output does not look good. According to this, could recruiter demand obtaining MS Word license?

Answer 1

I'm in the same situation - my CV is in LaTeX and I produce a PDF file for my CV.

When recruiters ask for a Word file, I tell them that I cannot do that, because I don't own a copy of Word, or a computer which will run Word.

Assuming by "recruiters" you mean recruitment agencies:

The companies that you are applying to don't care that your CV is PDF instead of Word, it's only the recruitment companies in the middle, and unless you're fresh out of education with no experience, they'll try and accommodate you because that's their job; there will be other recruitment agencies trying to fill the same positions that they are competing with.

What I do instead, is offer an alternative PDF version that has my contact details removed from it - it's easy to build this from the same LaTeX source. Sometimes this is good enough for them, other times they copy and paste the contents of my CV into a Word document themselves.

Answer 2

How to deal with them?

You either give them what they have asked for, or you don't work with them.

Answer 3

Welcome to the real world. Sometimes you have to work with other people - while you may prefer to keep your CV in LaTeX or whatever else, that's not how the industry works. They want Word and the vast majority of candidates are happy to do that.

Therefore you have a choice: give them a copy of your CV in Word, or don't work with that recruiter. Ask yourself a question: is this really a battle worth fighting? If you're a strong proponent of Free Software, it might be, then it's a valid choice. But for most people, it's probably not.

To be honest, the fact that you are reluctant to fulfill their request may give a bad impression, as it may read as "high maintenance, unwilling to make reasonable compromises" - have a serious think about whether that's the attitude you want to project when looking for a job.

Answer 4

Recruiters often demand this because they'll need to edit it to remove your direct contact information so the company can't go around them and get out of paying their fee. That is a pretty crucial component of the recruiter's business. You can't really expect them to forego that.

In addition to this, bigger recruiting firms often times have a process where they copy edit and layout their candidate's resumes in a specific way with generally equal formatting, a company logo for the recruiter and some other information they collect on the applicant added. This is part of the service these recruiters provide.

In theory, they could do that if you gave them the LaTeX source code, too, but in practice .docx is standard for this and having extra processes for other formats is often not worth it for them.

You could probably offer them a .odt file if you're so averse to just converting it into a word file, but you probably won't get away without at least giving them something editable.

In the end the only leverage you have here is not working with them, though.

Answer 5

I had this scenario a couple of months ago, the ultimatum is exactly as other answers say: Either comply with their requests or don't work with them and risk losing invaluable opportunities.

I asked why they wanted it in Word format and two separate recruiters got back to me saying round about in the same way:

• They like to be able to extract text or reword sentences to put into their own templates which their company uses to pass onto clients.
• This can be so client received standardized formats of each candidate which increases fairness of each candidate and make sure each resume has an equal chance.
• A standardized format may or may not exclude personal information such as contact information, so the client is reliant on the recruitment company to contact the candidate. This is because there were instances of clients receiving resumes and then bypassing the recruitment company to make recruitment themselves, losing the recruitment company revenue.

If you are unable to obtain a Word license, have you tried using OpenOffice or LibreOffice? They are Free Open-Source Software (FOSS), which includes the principle of free to use and can save documents of a Word format such as .doc, .docx. You don't have to put as much effort into the formatting of the text, as long as it has some basic neatness.

A quick refactor and migration of information from your current LaTeX resume over to a Word compatible one can open up so many more opportunities. Your aim is to expand your horizons, not box yourself.

Answer 6

I also have a ModernCV based CV, and to the few recruiters who ask for a word based CV I just use latex2rtf, a tool available in most distributions and through homebrew as well.

While .rtf is not .doc, it is a format that can be opened by all major word processors, and can be easily edited and converted to .doc as well. While it doesn't keep all of the subtle niceties of ModernCV, it does a fairly good job in keeping the generic structure of the document, which is what recruiters need anyway. Yes, it will look like a website without CSS applied, but it will retain the main structure (job title headers, bullet points, additional details provided, etc.), which most CVs need anyway. If the recruiter wants to edit it then can add their own design to this easily.

Note although some recruiters accept PDFs, they will try to import it to word and edit it, which sometimes result in horrendous results. I once saw the CV the recruiter sent over to the company I was applying and it became a huge mess (paragraphs were overlayed on each other, text was cropped at the side of the page, half blank pages, etc. - just so they could add their logo to every page), so I sometimes also ask the recruiters if they usually modify CVs and then send over the .rtf version as well. They never complained that it's not .doc. (Also because of this as an interviewer I try not to give too much attention to the design of the CVs, especially if it comes through recruiters)

Answer 7

There are multiple levels of desperation that determine how far you should play according to their rules and how much they should play to your rules or be ignored.

Option 1, Desperation level low: If you are not desperate for a job, just don't work with them. Preferably let them know that creating a Word file is too much of a hassle for you. This gives them the opportunity to back off from their demand and accept your PDF or at the least it is some feedback for them to think about changing the way they work.

Option 2, Medium Desperation level: If you somewhat need the job, get LibreOffice (or another free Office tool) and produce a Word (docx) document with it. Tell them you used that software instead of original Word because you don't privately own a license and that therefore it might look garbled up when they look at it with their MS Word. This means they get something that may directly work for them or need some low to medium effort to fix the formatting. But it's a compromise with a good chance for them to be satisfied or ask any missing information lost in the transformation directly. They might also decide to go with your PDF option and, again, it provides feedback to them that their way isn't the fully accepted standard.

Option 3, High Desperation level: If you really need the job, get an MS Word license and copy your CV. There are some tools that provide an auto-generated skeleton from a Latex source, I think, but last time I checked, they still required some manual work.

Personal Opinion: Recruiters provide a service to companies and to workers. They can only flourish if they keep both happy. Their profession is to smooth out the initial contact so the ones that fit each other find together without the hassle of establishing first contact. They should be good in communicating to both and they should know that there are these oddball engineers who don't use the typical marketing business toolchain, as they have their own preferred and established tool chain. Therefore, in my opinion, any recruiter that insists on such technical details is a bad recruiter (or he is in a very comfortable situation where he as too many good candidates already). He may ask for his preferred format, but he should always be able to accommodate (reasonable) choices of both a company or a candidate. It's exactly his job to translate between both! I'd simply move on, letting him know why.

Answer 8

You did not include what level position you are aiming for.

For a standard position, Masked Man has the correct answer. They have their standard procedure and won't bend it for you, end of discussion.

For senior positions, where the recruiter doesn't have 20 candidates lined up but is happy for each one he can find, you absolutely make the rules and if you don't have it in Word, he will bend for you. Simply answer with the facts, because he probably assumes that you have a Word file and don't want to give it otherwise. Send him the LaTeX file and a note explaining that you write the CV in this format and there is no Word file, otherwise you would have supplied it.

My CV is in Apple Pages and exported to PDF and I've yet to have a recruiter walk out on me because of that. Some ask for a Word file, some don't, but so far everyone accepted it that a Word file simply doesn't exist and that's it.

Answer 9

Your reasons are good and exactly why I prepare my CV in .pdf format if it is going to a recruiter. Bad recruiters will happily mess up your carefully prepared CV and even alter the information given. Your CV is your representation to potential employers, it is both sensible and reasonable to insist that it remains completely under your control. Good recruiters will usually have no problem with you editing the CV to satisfy their needs (which is usually just removing contact details) and I have done this in the past.

I would tell the recruiter that you can make any changes they need made, and if they're not happy with that simply decline their services. In my opinion, a recruiter who demands Word is probably a bad recruiter and you're not missing much, but unfortunately even bad recruiters can be gatekeepers to good jobs.

Answer 10

Let's not forget that most CVs are first parsed by a machine, and only the better ones are passed on to humans. The Word requirement may well be about making your resume readable by the Applicant Tracking System. Write for the ATS Machine, it is unimpressed by fancy formatting !

How to Get Your Resume Past the ATS Robots - The Muse

[...] Many large organizations rely on applicant tracking systems (ATS) to help pre-filter resumes. The systems work by scanning resumes for contextual keywords and key phrases, mathematically scoring them for relevance, and sending only the most qualified ones through for human review.[...]

Answer 11

If you can get your hands on (borrow) a licensed copy of Word, it does a surprisingly good job of importing a LaTeX-produced PDF. I was in the same position: a funding body wanted my CV on file in word format, while I keep it in LaTeX (worth doing in academia, as you can automatically import and format a publications list). Word manages to handle ligatures (ff to ff for example - try selecting). I used the ModernCV template in LaTeX.

Of course the resulting Word file needs some fine-tuning, but as you should be going through your CV for each application (or for the field the recruiter is trying to match you to) this isn't too onerous. A few dingbats were broken (bullets became {s, and the icons for email and phone number became letters -- a font substitution issue); and the output of \latex was offensive in its ugliness (a nice demonstration?). What doesn't work is reflowing the text, including hyphenation over line breaks.

Libreoffice is much less successful and I don't recommend it.

Instead of maintaining a Word copy, regard it as a snapshot, and update it only on major changes. If I had to do this on a semi-regular basis I'd write a Word macro for post-processing, but I have considerable experience of Office macros in previous jobs.

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Some examples follow, to illustrate the discussion in the comments (only lightly censored to remove personal info).

Original LaTeX PDF:

Imported directly into Word:

Imported into LibreOffice Draw, then copied to Writer,saved as docx and opened in Word (it looked better in LibreOffice):

(Pandoc from the original .tex loses all the content, just keeping the headings and cover letter)

Answer 12

Once many years ago, before it was common for word processing software to include "export to PDF" as an option, I asked someone with a job posting in the newspaper classifieds why they asked for PDF resumes only. Their answer:

I expect to get over a hundred resumes for this position. After I throw away the ones who couldn't be bothered to meet my requirement of a PDF resume, I've only got 40 to read and most of them will be reasonable candidates.

So it is quite possible that if your resume is not in the requested Word format it will just be thrown away.

It's not difficult to find free software that can output Word format; that's where my Word resumes come from. If you really think PDF or LaTex is a better choice feel free to include it alongside the Word document.

Answer 13

Use pandoc to produce a docx document from LaTeX, Markdown, ...

Answer 14

I also use LaTeX for my resume and have come across this problem. What I do is prepare two versions of my resume: a PDF version and a plaintext version. My resume content is in one file and uses styles and macros to control all of the layout. Build using my "pretty" style and I get a nicely-formatted PDF, or build with my "plain" style and get something simplistic and plain that can be copy/pasted into a .txt file without formatting problems. Using a single "content" file for both means I don't have two separate resume files to manually keep in sync.

The original reason I did that was because I discovered that many automated resume processing systems could not parse data out of the LaTeX-generated PDF files correctly (I guess the formatting was too complex). I also found it useful for those recruiters that insisted on some specific document format - be it .doc, .rtf, or whatever - since plain text files can be trivially converted to practically anything.

Answer 15

Recruiters usually want a .doc version of your CV so they can edit it. If you don't want the recruiter to edit your CV, tell them that. It would be reasonable to offer them that you'd make the required edits on your side and provide the updated version to the recruiter.

If you don't mind the recruiter to edit your CV, then this boils down to the extra work required on your side to fulfil the recruiter's request. It's true that automated conversion tools often produce results which are not so good-looking, but nothing prevents you from editing those converted documents into shape. If you don't feel like doing this work yourself and don't care how the end result will look, you can just say something along the lines of "sorry, I only have this PDF and a TEX file" and then the recruiter will either drop you, or fix your CV for you.

Answer 16

The recruiter may not know this, but they're probably suffering from the infamous XY problem. In most cases⁺ what they actually want to do is probably editing out your personal details (which is common practice) or brush up technical/formal details (which may be okay when e.g. omitting details not relevant for the position, or fixing typos that they should actually put to your attention, but may also cross a line by making up experience you don't have). Their typical workflow is doing so in their natural habitat of MS Office (nobody's perfect and it's their company's choice no matter their personal preference). However, as stated elsewhere, other recruiters are very capable of directly working with PDF and it is up to you whether their XY problem is yours as well or you can react to it:

• Tell them bluntly to take it or leave it (not actually recommended)
• Do the changes they want to do for them in your .tex file (maybe even storing this version as a separate branch you can git cherry-pick for future recruiters). Obviously quite some work on your part and might waste time with multiple "not what I expected"-iterations, but at least you still have full control over how they represent you
• Instead of using a not-so-stellar PDF2DOCX converter have pandoc convert from tex to docx directly. YMMV regarding the optical result, but technically they get a docx to fix or mess up on their own. Least effort for you, but you might get what you paid for...

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⁺ But don't make assumptions! Their reason for asking for a Word file might be different/sensible, so before you do anything just ask what they want to accomplish with that and that you'd like to find a different solution to that.

Answer 17

"How you deal" with recruiters that want things a certain way, is you meet every detail of their submission guidelines, exactly how they want it, with a smile on your face, or else you don't apply for the job at all.

Do you really want the first impression that you give the company be that you're not willing to adhere to company standards with which you disagree?

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Incidentally,

Office 365 (including Word) is free for students and developers.