The whispering is all in her head and says she sucks
If your organization is such a clusterfuck that you can’t figure out how to open a PDF, then I’m going to consider that a bullet dodged.
Our front desk person, on the computer all day, barely understands how tabs work.
It’s scary.
gen z or boomer?
I don’t like dishing on generational rants, but OMG the mobile device generation is every bit as lost as Boomers are when it comes to the actual functioning of their device or using a PC as an actual work device.
My kids have had a PC since they were four, they’re teens now and they still don’t get a lot of it, but when their friends come over they are absolutely clueless. Use an Xbox or Playstation? IPad? Sure! No problem! Anything beyond that they just give up.
Technology needs to be actively taught and actively learned! If their school isn’t teaching it, maybe try subscribing to some online tech literacy courses?
Literally every single browser can open a PDF.
Is she admitting that their organization only uses discontinued, insecure Internet Explorer to use the internet? Is she also opening word files in Microsoft word 2005?
Nah she’s talking about the ATS systems that filter through all the applicants’ resumes looking for the ones with the highest amount of matching keywords so they can get the number of applicants down to a more reasonable number to interview.
They don’t care if their bots don’t work for your PDF resume because they get so many applicants it doesn’t matter.
I’m surprised this isn’t common knowledge for jobseekers.
I recently found an ad requiring knowledge of win2000/XP
Depending on the job itself, this actually makes sense for legacy support. My job requires “passable experience with Windows 98SE, XP, and 2000”, but the network-facing computers are all 10 and 11.
I’m going to take a stab and say she’s a recruiter for a third party staffing company.
They REQUIRE word docs so that they can copy and paste or edit your resume on their template.
Pro tip: take the requirements that they send you and Google search for it. Apply directly with the company and cut them out.
I mean her profile says she works for “First Search” which sound like a middle man for sure.
And “Chief Candidate Whisperer”? Wtf. Don’t get me started.
I used to work IT at a school and reports were emailed to parents as PDFs.
We got a complaint from a few parents saying things like, why are the reports PDF? Not everyone has Acrobat Reader, you should be sending these out as Microsoft Word files.
I then had to tell them that unlike Microsoft Word, Acrobat Reader is free to download and install. Anyone can get Acrobat reader or another PDF viewer, but not everyone just has Word on their device nor are they willing to buy it.
I didn’t mention the part about a Word file is easy to just edit.
I’m also going to assume that some of them are using a work laptop where they have Word installed and no admin rights to install a PDF viewer and too lazy to ask IT.
Not just this, most (?all?) browsers now support viewing standard PDF documents… So, they shouldn’t even need to installing anything as long as they aren’t using IE…
I should have added this was back in 2010 or so, I don’t think it was as common to be able to open PDFs in browsers without an addon.
I remember sometime after 2014 I was just able to open PDFs without any additional software.
Sorry I can’t see this picture, can you upload it as a word document please?
I used to do layout and design for children’s books. I cannot tell you the number of times I requested an image to be edited, or a higher resolution version, only to be sent a word doc with the image inside the document.
I’ve gotten a screenshot in a word doc that was printed and then scanned to email. I couldn’t see a gd thing.
lol, that’s a boomer classic
If you are an HR manager and you’re unable to open a PDF then you should first try and finish first grade high school before continuing your job.
How many great employees have YOU missed out on because you’re so lacking in basic life skills that one wonders how you found the tit as a baby to nourish yourself…
They want it as a word doc so they can edit it and fuck with it before passing it along.
This isn’t even necessarily for nefarious reasons. I’ve actually had a case where HR was trying to help by putting in the words that they were stupidly required to find in a resume.
Still not a good sign of a properly functioning organization.
Staffing agencies will do this to make you look more appealing to a client.
They also like this for the off chance you forgot to disable revision history - so they can look at how you edited the document over time.
This would be a great opportunity to insert a bunch of crazy content hidden in the edit. Like passages of the Bible or edits of an erotic book you’ve been writing.
Or to throw it in whatever AI bullshit software they use that doesn’t support PDF
.txt file it is
Fuck it if they can’t compile my LaTeX then they don’t deserve me.
Are you fucking kidding me?
That’s some of the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard… Hell, that would even be fucking stupid in 1998.
9/10 applicants who submit their resume as a PDF for our openings, we can’t view.
Can’t, or won’t?
If you can’t figure out how to open a PDF, I really don’t want to work for you.
I always think of the one green text where the first thing the person does when they get resumes is to throw the top half of the pile in the bin cause:
Can’t have any unlucky people working here.
This is SovCit level.
What the hell? Every bit of resume advice I’ve ever gotten has said to use PDF to protect from potential formatting errors due to display differences.
The great thing about random tech illiterate assholes posting “hot tips” like this on LinkedIn is that they very often don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.
That, and also to ensure they can open the document. I don’t use word processors in my daily job, yet I do interviews, so if someone gives me a Word Document or similar, I’m going to be put out to read it. PDFs, on the other hand, render just fine in my web browser.
Can’t open a PDF? Fine, here is a JPEG of my resume.
Well, this is obviously ridiculous. If you want to maximise your chances, make it as easy as possible. Send an exe.
You. I like you
how many opportunities have you missed
Maybe they should be asking themselves the same questions if they are just ignoring most of the candidates because they are too lazy to get a pdf reader. I’m sure they aren’t getting the best people with that approach.
The problem is they expect everyone to jump through hoops for them as if all the candidates are the same and they just need to pick one.
You don’t even need a dedicated PDF reader, many (most?) browsers have a PDF reader built-in. You need extra software to see word processor documents, you don’t to see a PDF.
If a company is so incompetent that a PDF isn’t sufficient (or even preferred), that’s not a company I want to deal with anyway.
many (most?) browsers have a PDF reader built-in
All 3 of them do. You have to work at it to find one that doesn’t support reading PDFs, unless you happen to still be using Internet Explorer in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty Four
