My team has several open roles right now, and I’ve experienced a minor annoyance I think is worth sharing. Here’s my quick advice: Put your resume in PDF format before applying for a job.
The Resume Review Process
Before I get into why this presumably small detail is important, let me give you a small window into how reviewing resumes works for me. Our recruiting team does a great job of making it easy to scan resumes. Every Monday I receive an email with a link to our shared document letting me know last week’s resumes are ready to review.

I do my best to get this done by EOD Monday, or Tuesday morning at the latest. (I’ll write more on how to create a hiring machine later). The shared doc has a row for every candidate with a resume attachment. (Here’s how it would partially look if I applied)

I click on the paper clip and a box pops up.

If the resume is in PDF format, I’ll simply double click and the PDF resumes will quickly be added to my browser. One tab = one resume. See what I mean here:

I can now quickly scan each resume, note if I want to phone screen the person in our shared doc, and quickly get on with my day.
If someone applies with a Microsoft WORD resume, the first thing I have to do is throw my mouse against the wall.
Just kidding.
But in all seriousness, I now have to wait for Word to load. If more than one person applies with a Word resume, I now have to open multiple word docs open, which wreaks havoc to my seamless workflow with PDF resumes.
It’s just annoying. And unnecessary.
How to do It
I suppose I shouldn’t assume everyone knows how to put their resume into a PDF format. If that’s the case, here’s what you do inside Microsoft Word:
- Click File -> Save As
- Select File Format -> PDF
- Click Export

Why This is Important
Because the person reviewing your resume is busy. Whether it’s a recruiter, a hiring manager, or me. We’re all doing something that is important, moderately annoying, and we need to get on with the next thing. By submitting a Word document, you have now thrown a little wrinkle into our day, which becomes a major annoyance when you’re reviewing 10+ resumes.
Plus, the little things matters. It’s easy to brush off this advice thinking it’s no big deal, but in order to land that dream
Finally, treat your resume like a fine piece of art. At a minimum, it’s your entire career on a page or two. Why leave it in a form that someone could accidentally edit or tarnish?
Putting your resume in PDF form makes it look cleaner and puts a bow on a process that should have
Thanks for reading my post rant,
JMars
Great advice