
Show HN: ResumeFodder – Go app for generating Word resumes from JSON Resume data - StevePerkins
https://resumefodder.com/
======
Johnie
I don't understand why there are so many of these Resume generator sites. It
seems like college students finally having to put together a resume and
figured a resume generator would make a good product without figuring out what
they are solving for and without talking doing customer development
(recruiters/job seekers).

The goal for the resume is to get a job. It is something that you create once
and update as needed (I'm still using the same resume file started 8 years
ago). It needs to stand out from the crowd; with a generator, all resumes look
the same.

The templates/examples that are go against some of the basic rules/best
practices for resumes (ie too long, too verbose, not easily machine
parseable).

If you want to solve a problem in this industry, it would be "how do
recruiters find the best candidate" and "how do candidates find the best job
for their skills". A resume generator solves neither one of those.

Otherwise, this is a cool fun, hack though. I think there may be better
applications for JSON to template to document technology other than resume
generator.

~~~
StevePerkins
I started this project because most of the generators and templates I saw out
there are really geared toward entry and junior-level professionals. I've been
working for over 15 years now, and have a ton of job records since I started
out in consulting/contracting. So my own needs were to _reduce_ verbosity in
my resume. That's why I added extensions to the default schema, that allow you
to list older jobs with less detail than more recent work history, etc.

Like you, I've been maintaining the same Word document for years now. A pain
point for me has been tracking changes over time. Like I said, my work history
is pretty extensive... so every couple of years I go back and trim some detail
off older listings, to reduce length and prevent my resume from looking like a
CV. However, I hate to lose that older content forever, and storing multiple
versions of Word binaries and diff'ing them is kinda clunky. Separating the
content from the style really helps.

Also, earlier in my career I had to maintain two or three different versions
of my resume, to target different types of job opportunities. If I were
applying for a more front-end focused position, then I had one resume that put
more emphasis on JavaScript and HTML experience. For back-end focused
positions, I had a version more focused on Java and SQL. At this point in my
career I have much clearer vision of my career path, and know what I'm looking
for in my job hunting. Also, we're ALL "full-stack" now, right? (just like all
companies are "agile"!) However, if you do need to maintain customized
versions of your resume content, then being able to branch in git is awesome.

Lastly, I just like the ability to switch up the look-and-feel every so often,
without a ton of cut-n-paste hassle. These days I spend more time on the other
side of the interview table as a hiring manager. You CAN go too far off the
deep end with silly resume design, but I'm here to tell you that a little
touch of style definitely makes you stand out from the crowd. Even if it is a
canned template. 90% of developer resumes today are ugly blobs with no real
formatting at all.

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mixmastamyk
No, you should never send your resume in MS Word format, because it can be
readily edited. For example, it could be changed by a recruiter before landing
at the hiring manager. Not to mention the proprietary nature of the format and
support of "the man".

Pdf is better on several counts, (generally) read-only and an open standard
for many years now, therefore having convenient free readers on OSX and Linux,
usable without formatting concerns.

~~~
StevePerkins
This might be a regional thing, but in 15+ years I've never once worked with a
recruiter (3rd-party or in-house) who didn't ask for my resume in Word format.

Yes, the 3rd-party headhunters tend to strip off my contact info and insert
their own. I don't really blame them, given the number of companies who try to
cut out the middleman and hire the candidate directly (I'd had companies try
to do this with me on multiple occasions).

At any rate, it's trivially easy to export a Word file to PDF if you wish.
I've seen some other JSON Resume processors that maintain separate templates
for multiple file types (e.g. Word, PDF, HMTL). To me it just made more sense
to have one version of each template, since you can easily export from that
output to all the others. This reduces the burden of authoring new templates.

~~~
devonkim
It's not even that PDFs make it harder for editing, it's that most recruiters
will copy-paste from your resume into a standardized template for that
company, and the recruiters are oftentimes so bad at technology or so
overloaded with hundreds of candidates that they'd rather go with a Word doc
to save 2 minutes to open up something else that might get wonky when you copy
and paste it again (bullet points are a good example of differences from PDF
to Word in how they're copied).

------
Numberwang
I love the site and I love your designs. Very well put together. Would you
mind sharing some details about how the app itself is built etc?

~~~
StevePerkins
Thanks!

All of the source code is published to GitLab (with a GitHub mirror), and is
described at:

[https://resumefodder.com/source.html](https://resumefodder.com/source.html)

The core functionality is just a couple hundred lines of Go code. The version
of the Microsoft Word file format that I'm using is raw XML, and the Go
standard library includes a template system that lets me add dynamic tags to
the XML. The Go standard library also includes a built-in JSON parser... so it
just a matter of reading in the resume data and processing the template
output, with a bit of validation in the middle.

I wrote two front-ends for that. One is a command-line wrapper for running
locally. I was originally inspired by another JSON Resume processor named
"HackMyResume", but it is JavaScript-based and requires Node.js to be
installed. With Go, I liked the ability to compile down to a standalone
executable with no dependencies at all.

The second front-end is of course the online website that you've viewing.
That's only a few dozen lines, and runs on Google App Engine. For this
particular use case (e.g. stateless, no data storage or querying), that
platform really shines.

I'm not a very front-end savvy guy, so the website static content is just me
doing the best I could with Bootstrap. I'm going to have to split some static
assets off into CDN hosting... because I'm currently serving EVERYTHING
through App Engine, and just blew through my daily free bandwidth quota in two
hours. :(

~~~
sytse
Thanks for hosting on GitLab!

------
hbz
If you already have your work history filled out on LinkedIn, this seems like
a handy tool: [https://github.com/JMPerez/linkedin-to-json-
resume](https://github.com/JMPerez/linkedin-to-json-resume)

------
santa_boy
Sort of related. I launched [Progrez | Great Resumes Made
Easy!]([https://www.progrez.in/](https://www.progrez.in/)) mainly for myself
right now :-) ... it uses markdown inputs

~~~
slig
Congrats on shipping! If I may offer a suggestion, please show more about the
interface (screenshots) so that the user can have a sense of how it works
before creating an account.

~~~
santa_boy
Thank you Sir. Your feedback is appreciated and I'll implement it soon.

------
dezzeus
The "funny" thing is that I'm currently working (on spare time) on such a
thing for JSON -> [Website | PDF] without even knowing the existence of
jsonresume.org etc.

I started from JSON by defining a meta-model with a certain semantic with the
aim of rendering it with HTML+Javascript (and using CSS for both online and
PDF printed version) but, instead, I should better have checked the web
first...

By the way, I really like the "raw" JSON format for the CV/Résumé (perhaps as
I have defined it)... if it wasn't for @mixmastamyk point, I'd be glad if it
would be accepted as is.

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robodale
Yay, another resume generator site. I thought this was an update to one of the
many other resume update apps/sites/(scratch-my-itch-ware)...but this is yet
another one. You'd think this was the #1 problem of humanity with all the
resume creator/generator/parser code being written out there.

------
miguelrochefort
Where does that obsession with Go comes from?

~~~
Numberwang
Where does that obsession with JSON come from?

