My Résumé Workflow

Resumes! That almighty document, it's what recruiters crave!! You need one (unless you're extra special) and there are many ways of making your resume. There are web apps, design templates and even dinosaur-era® software available for use. This is how I do mine.

So...over the years, I've produced my resume using various tools: ms-word, latex and yes even (at the time) macromedia flash. I found latex to produce the best results but I ran into two problems. Latex is ugly to write even though it produces gorgeous results AND most recruiters insist on word documents because reasons. It's possible to convert latex to word docs but I didn't succeed in doing so. I ended up maintaining two different formats of the same resume which was inefficient.

% seriously dis ugly
\begin{document}
\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{$\circ$}
\newcommand{\mywebheader}{
\begin{tabular*}{7in}{l@{\extracolsep{\fill}}r}
    \textbf{\href{http://www.goldenxp.com/}{\LARGE SUNDER IYER}} & \href{http://www.goldenxp.com}{http://www.goldenxp.com}
\vspace{0.1in}}

Now I just use JSONResume. It's easy to write, has many beautiful templates and supports hosting with easy previews.

The links can be shared or saved and distributed as a PDF. But what about those pesky word docs? ResumeFodder to the rescue!
I have a batch script that uses ResumeFodder and it converts the JSONResume file into a word XML file which opens nicely in Microsoft Word. No complaints yet!

Currently I have modified the XML template that's used to generate the final doc but in the future I hope to take this further with selective data export.