
Writing a CV in LaTeX - gnosis
http://texblog.org/2012/04/25/writing-a-cv-in-latex/
======
SeoxyS
What's the advantage of using something like LaTeX for a CV? The point of a a
resumé is purely to make you look good, and as such you'd be much better off
making a PDF using a real layout tool (like InDesign). You want your resumé to
be friendly and attractive, you want to stand out from the pack, and to use
typographical design principles to make any viewer like your CV more without
even realizing why.

Btw, here's my resumé, for reference:
<http://kenneth.ballenegger.com/dl/resume2012.pdf>

~~~
friggeri
A CV in LaTeX does not have to be typesetted in Computer Modern nor have a dry
"LaTeX feel". Using XeTeX, TikZ, fontspec and Open Type fonts you can do fun
stuff that look gorgeous.

The great thing for me is that I can directly import my .bib and all my
publications are automagically included in my CV. My attempt:
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3809633/cv_adrien_friggeri.pdf> (slightly out of
date, should recompile and update)

~~~
idank
It's a bit too 'colory' for my taste but I like the design. Is it open source?

~~~
friggeri
I'll have to clean it up but I'll definitely open source it.

~~~
Stwerp
Just fyi, I too would also be very interested in the source for this. It
really looks nice!

------
rpearl
I am a fan of XeTeX for this sort of thing. It lets you use modern otf fonts,
rather than just the fonts that have been turned into LaTeX packages.

I feel kinda silly posting my own as an example, but here goes:
<http://www.endofunctor.org/~rpearl/resume.pdf>

~~~
tikhonj
I rather like that design. Do you have a source I could look at? I've used
LaTeX, but I've been meaning to try XeTeX for a while.

Are there any particular difficulties with switching from LaTeX to XeTeX?

I actually did my resume with LaTeX, but then became too lazy to update it.
Now it's somehow a year out of date :P. (A year is a lot of time for a college
student...) Seems like the perfect excuse to redo it and a great time to try
XeTeX.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
XeTeX is almost completely compatible with PDFLaTeX, which is compatible with
LaTeX except when using Postscript tricks (in particular, pstricks).

~~~
anghyflawn
Actually, xetex-pstricks has been in TeX Live for a long time now. It will not
give you all of pstricks in XeLaTeX, but for the simplest needs it's more than
sufficient. Microtype is a bigger problem.

------
law
Although I use LaTeX for my resume, it's also worth checking out PGF/TikZ:
[http://ctan.math.utah.edu/ctan/tex-
archive/graphics/pgf/base...](http://ctan.math.utah.edu/ctan/tex-
archive/graphics/pgf/base/doc/generic/pgf/pgfmanual.pdf)

The learning curve is _very_ steep, but if you're doing anything creative with
the organization or representation of content, you'll fare far better with PGF
and TikZ than you will with LaTeX.

~~~
weff
Does 'steep learning curve' not mean the rate of learning (X: time and
Y:knowledge) is high, thus a little effort outputs lots of knowledge?

~~~
law
Heh, I never actually took the time to think of the literal meaning of the
phrase. Nevertheless, the quantity modified by 'steep' is in fact scalar and
thus 'steep' affects _only_ the magnitude. It reveals nothing about the
underlying nature of the quantity, which could indeed be the inverse rate of
learning or something like that.

------
jedbrown
Managing lists of publications is time consuming, especially when different
publications should be selected in different contexts (e.g. choose 10 relevant
publications for each grant proposal, or sort them according to different
criteria). My solution is to use multibib with this in the preamble

    
    
      \usepackage[resetlabels]{multibib}
      \newcites{journal,submitted,conference,report}{
        Journal Papers Published,
        Journal Papers Submitted,
        Refereed Proceedings Papers,
        Technical Reports}
    

and this in the document wherever I want a bib listing.

    
    
      \nocitejournal{list,of,bibtex,keys,...}
      \bibliographystylejournal{unsrt}
      \bibliographyjournal{bibtex,files}
    

and so on for each other category.

~~~
ecesena
I quote. Moreover, I use booleans to deal with different versions of the same
entry, for instance for multi-language CV, or work vs academic, or again short
vs full.

In the preamble:

    
    
        \newboolean{cvit}
        \setboolean{cvit}{true}   % just change this and recompile
        \newcommand{\italian}[2]{\ifthenelse{\boolean{cvit}}{#1}{#2}}
    

And in the document:

    
    
        \italian{Ciao mondo!}{Hello world!}

------
aashworth
This post would have been so handy for me about a year ago when I was applying
for new jobs. Unfortunately, I was not able to switch over to using LaTeX to
format my resume: many websites will only accept a formatted Word-compatible
document.

~~~
rollypolly
Word-only is HR lingo for "You're over-skilled for this job. Move along."

~~~
hogu
or recruitment firms that want to remove your contact info from the resume
before submitting it to their clients.

~~~
homosaur
If you're using a recruitment firm, that's fair game although I'm glad the one
I've used from time to time asked me to do it myself and not try to be sneaky
about what they are doing on the backend. It makes the whole dealings with
them way more comfortable that they are upfront about everything they are
doing on my and their behalf. From what I understand this is not exactly
standard practice with a lot of these firms.

~~~
joezydeco
I've had the same thing asked of me when I submit a resume in PDF format. I
always happily reply that I can generate a new PDF with the requested contact
information removed. If they're not amicable to that, then we have no chance
of working together.

------
koko775
I always take a second look at a LaTeX resume, if only because learning enough
LaTeX to make a decent resume is a positive indicator - albeit merely a
cosmetic one.

------
pbsurf
Here is another example of a LaTeX CV: <http://www.styluslabs.com/mwhite/>

~~~
ecesena
And here is my preferred one: [http://www.ctan.org/tex-
archive/macros/latex/contrib/modernc...](http://www.ctan.org/tex-
archive/macros/latex/contrib/moderncv/)

------
AdrianRossouw
I decided to build a portfolio site in jekyll and add a print stylesheet, with
which I could generate a PDF to send around.

~~~
AdrianRossouw
actually, it's kind of ridiculous the amounts of HTML/CSS I am willing to
write to avoid having to use a word processor.

I don't know latex, but if I did, it would probably be what I reached for.

------
yogsototh
I've passed through many different steps. I've tried Inkscape, LaTeX, XeLaTeX,
HTML.

Now, I've developed my own system. I write the source in markdown and I can
export in HTML, PDF and online SVG exported from the PDF.

It has been some time I didn't updated it but you might find this useful:

<http://resume.espozito.com/index.html>

Some source code can be found here

<https://github.com/yogsototh/krambook>

~~~
Sephr
That should all be on one page. I don't think anyone wants to open up all of
these various pages just to read your resume. If you want to keep everything
split up, <http://elliottcable.name/resume.xhtml> is a good example of an
online resume done well.

------
okamiueru
I think that for anyone that isn't very familiar with latex, doing any
adjustment at all will be a painful experience. You might be lucky if you get
a hold of a style that suits you perfectly (or find a setup ready to use like
the one in the article), but I honestly can't think of a worse language/tool
to write a CV in, than LaTeX.

I've used LaTeX on several projects, and I found it to be wonderful for larger
documents, and especially those that 'just work' with the defaults, especially
those that are heavy in math, and especially those that are heavy in
citations. A CV? Mine would have any if those properties, so no way in hell
that I'd would go through that pain. Why? Because I'll be trying to adjust the
position of elements for one, or two pages tops. If it were for a book or
thesis, sure, writing a style to suit it might be worth it.

In summary, it really depends on what you know, and what you want to achieve.
If you're not an expert in LaTeX, and you want more than the bare minimum of
control over where things end up and how it looks, then LaTeX is the worst
possible choice.

InDesign, Fireworks (even Photoshop) all cost a lot but I'd choose them any
day over it. InkScape, count me in. I'll even use libreOffice over LaTeX.

------
dalore
A problem I found with CVs is that recruiters often ask you to resend it in
word doc form (I guess so they can edit it and remove your contact info).

Also if your keeping your linkedin profile up to date then your effectively
doubling your effort. What I found really handy recently was linkedin's resume
builder ( <http://resume.linkedinlabs.com/> ) which takes your linkedin
profile and creates a resume from it. There are many styles to choose from and
you can pick which info goes into it.

As for recruiters that ask for doc format I could say no but what I do is take
the pdf and convert it to doc (it loses some of the formatting) but also
explain that to the recruiter.

~~~
gnosis
_"A problem I found with CVs is that recruiters often ask you to resend it in
word doc form"_

Whenever recruiters have asked me this, I've just taken a screenshots of each
of the pages of my LaTeX-generated PDF, pasted them in to LibreOffice, and
saved them in DOC format.

~~~
dalore
Why do I find that solution but brillant and cunning?

------
mwhite
I prefer Markdown. It allows you to separate content and form, and you can
easily output to basically any format using pandoc.

<https://github.com/mwhite/resume>

~~~
MatthewPhillips
> It allows you to separate content and form

Could you explain further what you mean by "form"?

~~~
mwhite
Visual presentation and styling. Of course, if you write in Markdown then
there is some limit to the degree to which you can change the way things look
simply with a LaTeX header or CSS.

------
dbvisel
I once got a job because I could demonstrate my proficiency in TeX by pointing
to the C.V. I'd just handed them - although that was a job as a book designer.

~~~
DavidAbrams
I have a new job. It's rearranging the alphabet, so U and I can be together
forever.

~~~
aurelianito
They already did that in the qwerty keyboard layout.

------
chucklarge
I used to do my resumes in LaTeX but kept fighting with the styles. I really
just wished i could use html/css, and finally created my own template.

<https://github.com/chucklarge/html-resume-template>

------
dcousineau
Here's my (admittedly not CV though) resume that I built in LaTeX:
<https://github.com/dcousineau/resume>

It's not the world's best but naturally feel free to steal my source and run
wild with it.

~~~
th
You might want to add an example PDF for those too lazy to compile the resume
to check out the format. Also a license file couldn't hurt.

I like the separate cls file for handling most of the layout. I do pretty much
the same in mine: <https://github.com/treyhunner/resume>

------
BlackNapoleon
Is it worth learning LaTeX as a premed?

------
cies
i also keep my resume in latex:

<http://github.com/cies/resume>

------
DavidAbrams
WTF is a "CV"?

~~~
merijnv
Curriculum Vitae. You can think of it as a long form resume if I understand
the US notion of a resume correctly. They are commonly used in place of
resumes here (Netherlands, and presumably larger parts of the EU).

~~~
DavidAbrams
OK, thanks.

But the culture of obscurity reeks of insecurity.

~~~
tincholio
What culture of obscurity, exactly?

~~~
pseingatl
This is just a normal American reaction when we find out that other parts of
the world do things differently than we do. In a purely defensive measure, we
say that it is "obscure." For example, A4 paper is ubiquitous in the world.
Except North America. Try to buy A4 paper, ask for A4 compatible accessories,
etc. will draw only blank stares. There is no difference between a "cv" and a
"resume." The terms are synonyms.

Now back to the post....

Two issues: lots of places ask for Word-format. This is because (at least some
of them) are machine-reading the documents. This leads to the second point: if
your cv does not contain the keywords in the job description, it will not be
kicked out of the slush pile. So you have to write each cv/resume particularly
for each job. If they take pdf's; fine, otherwise, it's a little bit easier to
make a quick change in Word than to make a change in your favorite editor and
then compile.

Oh and should you compile for A4 or letter? Article or scarticle? Isn't there
a Dutch artikel class?

------
generateui
Using a deprecated technology to create a list of achievements seems odd to
me. Isn't html the lingua franca nowadays? A html file with @media print seems
much more logical to me.

~~~
lloeki
I use LaTeX because:

\+ I care about design, typesetting and typography

\+ it's FOSS

\+ it's cross-platform

\+ it doesn't cost me an arm compared to the alternative

\+ it's unbelievably lightweight (e.g MacTeX basic) compared to the
alternative

\+ it allows for code factorization

\+ it's text-based which means:

\- drivable form the shell

\- automatable from makefiles

\- editable in vim

\- can be generated with e.g erb or jinja2

\- naturally handled by git/hg

i.e it's composable in a unix workflow

TeX has its warts and a steep learning curve, but there's a slight difference
between obsolete technology and mature technology. Especially when there's _no
replacement_.

~~~
generateui
> I care about design, typesetting and typography

Sorry, but design, typesetting and typography done in html is far superior.
Why limit to paper only? Last time I checked, most typography features are
implemented in firefox/chrome. Html is the replacement. You limit yourself
with static information on paper using Tex. Tex falls into the category of
pdf, doc, docx, odt to me. Deprecated, because we do not put things on paper
today, but we put things on the internet.

~~~
mahrz
> typesetting and typography done in html is far superior

Did I miss the irony somewhere? Last time I checked (justified) line breaking
was a mess, protrusion is not supported and generally it's quite hard to
handle font metrics without using a canvas. I guess you're right that this is
changing, but it's nowhere near the quality and the ease (yes even that) of
TeX or InDesign. And if you use some content preprocessor like pandoc or xslt
the limitation of static information on paper isn't a problem anyway.

Btw, if you like to have more control over the layout have a look at ConTeXt,
it's quite nice especially its modular approach.

