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Intelligent Resume Tools?

Posted by Cliff on from the more-than-just-a-word-processor dept.

imrdkl asks: "It's time for me (and presumably a few others) to start thinking about a career change. With 10 years of experience, I'd like to be able to customize my resume a bit, to highlight the experience/education which is pertinent to a given job, instead of trying to say too much and boring the reader. Are there any tools out there (non-web-based preferred) which help a person to create a custom resume based (perhaps) on a small database which contains relevant work-experience highlights?"

3 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. xmlresume.sf.net by Sam+Lowry · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Check XML resume at http://xmlresume.sf.net
    If you work in IT, your addiction to XML
    and cutting-edge technologies will be
    surely appreciated.

  2. Actually, there is a use for this... by schnurble · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...but not what the original poster had in mind. I have to agree with most of the replies. If you've got that kind of experience, writing a resume should be simple.

    HOWEVER. What I want to see is something that will store this information, possibly in a db or somesuch, and then spit it out easily into multiple formats. The problem I'm finding now is, I've been asked for PDF, PostScript, HTML, Plaintext, RichText, and MS Word versions of my resume. So I've got 6 versions to keep up to date. Granted, it's not all THAT hard, but it's still a pain in the ass.

    The ideal situation would be to stuff all the relevent information (name, contact info, objective, experience, skills) into a database, then have an automagic confragulator or whatever generate the various formats. That way, I only have to update the information one, and this automagical process can just be a link on my homepage to "Download my resume in your favorite format". Adding a format is as simple as adding an output filter for the automagic confragulator. So when someone asks for ClarisWorks for MacOS 1.0 format, you hack together the appropriate output filter, and now you can kick it out in 7 formats, instantaneously, and always up to date.

    If anyone knows of something like that, it would be -very- useful.

    -j

    --
    "To err is human, to forgive is simply not my policy." --root
  3. Make a "Master" Resume by Sam+Nitzberg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In word, make a resume with each section that you -might- ever use.

    For sections that you might want to abbreviate, provide a second version right there.

    From there, you can make a complete resume with no redundant sections - use the longer version of any sections that you duplicate. This could be the follow-up resume that you bring with you to an interview, or as a response to follow-up questions.

    You can make a concise resume from any sections of the above resume as needed. Just modify this master as necessary, and pull sections that you want towards any specific application.

    Sections that you might want to include in the full, detailed master, might include activities, group memberships, publications, etc... The abridged version could just allude to these.

    Sam Nitzberg
    sam@iamsam.com
    http://www.iamsam.com
    http://www.iamsam.com/resume.html