Ask HN: How do you maintain versioning of your resume?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17228010

by kreeWall • 8 years ago

1 6 8 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

How do you maintain old copies of your resume and new copies? I have SO many files called "resume (date)" on my computer, and everytime I need to send it out, I have to remove the date so that the file looks good and then these just pile up. HELP!

joezydeco2• 8 years ago

Curious - why would you need to keep old copies of your resume around? Are you sending different versions to different employers?

If that's the case, create a base resume, then save a copy with the name of the targeted company and the date.

Why would FooCorp be bothered if your resume was filenamed "kreeWall-FooCorp-June2018.pdf"? It actually shows you took time to craft a document for them and aren't just spraying out resumes to every company that's receiving them.

kreeWall2• 8 years ago

Yes, different employers, or targeted for different jobs/situations. That's a solid point though - they probably won't care that it's named after them.

joezydeco2• 8 years ago

Just be diligent about checking names and dates before sending out files.

I used to also put things like that in the PDF metadata, then had a few copies go out with other employers' names. Nobody caught on, but you never know.

davelnewton• 8 years ago

I'm not even sure why you'd bother versioning.

In fairness, I do too, but I keep a dated set in a subfolder (`archived` if it matters) and when I edit I start with `current.doc` (unfortunately Word is still the preferred format outside of... anyone with any sense), save it as a dated version.

This way I only ever care about `current.doc` (and its exports into real formats) but can still reference stuff later.

That said, I've also experimented with simple resume data formats (primarily JSON and annotated Markdown) that got transformed into doc and real formats, and kept that in a normal repo. It was better, but since it was a homegrown format, annoying in the long run. I'll be revisiting it.

The nice thing about transforming a custom resume is that I was able to (more or less) automatically re-target it depending on the type of position I was submitting it for. That was only semi-automated, but spoke of some promising ideas.

kreeWall2• 8 years ago

That's a good point - I'm not really sure why I save previous versions as I'll probably never need them again, but I feel comfortable when I do for some reason.

cimmanom• 8 years ago

I got sufficiently annoyed with this to create a tool that will render my resume as HTML based on a few JSON files, and another tool that will print the HTML into a print-friendly PDF. Then I just keep the JSON in a separate Git repository. Problem solved.

Ask HN: How do you maintain versioning of your resume?

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