I'm sure there is a cool, hacked-together way to automate the process. And that might actually be a great idea for an app or utility of some sort.
My system to date has been very paleolithic. I keep a spreadsheet with all my bullet points, categorized by job and mapped to different Skills and Experiences (i.e., the things to be demonstrated via the bullet points). When compiling a resume, I cross-reference by job description and its keywords, skills/experiences to be shown, etc.
Then I sort of treat the process like a compilation of overlapping sets, i.e., "The job requirements are A, B, and C. I want to show that I've done X, which demonstrates A and B. Then I want to show that I've done Y, which demonstrates B. But maybe Z demonstrates B and C in a more effective way, so I'll use X and Z as my bullets." There is definitely an easier and more automated way to do all this, perhaps with databases, but I still value the organic process of poring over everything myself and gut-checking if the overall narrative flow makes sense.
As you might imagine, I played too many RPGs as a kid.
'make' and a 'resume.d' directory tree with a vanilla and variant resumes works pretty well. Put the whole shebang under version control.
You can output various formats (HTML for web posting, PDF for distribution/printing, .DOC for recruiter's resume-uptake systems (many are based on MS Word / VBA macros). This is also handy for stripping your personal and/or contact information from resumes posted online (to keep annoying contacts down).
This sounds very clever and well engineered. And let me just say that I pray to all the gods I hold holy that I never be forced into a situation where I'd need to use such a thing.
Viewed from outside the box: this is a classic example of a clever hack to work around the wrong part of the problem.
This sounds like the way to go. Thanks. Especially because, as modular as I like to think my resume is, there really kind of is a vanilla/standard version from which all subsequent versions are really just mods. Might be less legwork than recompiling from basic modules each time.
Yea, you don't want to automate this. You need to keep your resume personal and truly tailored to the job. Unless you really work on natural language parsing the job description and the "about" pages of the company website, it's going to be a lot easier to do those little modifications yourself.
And as you said, you want to make sure the overall narrative flow as well as the overall design of the document makes sense for the job.
My system to date has been very paleolithic. I keep a spreadsheet with all my bullet points, categorized by job and mapped to different Skills and Experiences (i.e., the things to be demonstrated via the bullet points). When compiling a resume, I cross-reference by job description and its keywords, skills/experiences to be shown, etc.
Then I sort of treat the process like a compilation of overlapping sets, i.e., "The job requirements are A, B, and C. I want to show that I've done X, which demonstrates A and B. Then I want to show that I've done Y, which demonstrates B. But maybe Z demonstrates B and C in a more effective way, so I'll use X and Z as my bullets." There is definitely an easier and more automated way to do all this, perhaps with databases, but I still value the organic process of poring over everything myself and gut-checking if the overall narrative flow makes sense.
As you might imagine, I played too many RPGs as a kid.