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?
That is absolutely an answer, but getting teens to take more classes after being done with school…? Good luck. The kids are issued chromebooks, that’s as much tech as they get.
I had my eldest help putting together her PC after she wanted to upgrade parts for her birthday. That’s promising, I think?
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?
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.
The recruiters also like to remove your name and contact details so that the companies they are selling you to can't bypass the recruiter.
Unless you open the pdf in gimp or something (and it's not just a photo, which would be equally bad in a word document) you should be able to copy from a PDF too.
Yeah, I don't know how to say this nicely, but my experience so far is that HR people are not* exactly the sharpest knives in the kitchen...
Well duh...PDF stands for "portable document file", not "readable document file".
You can send it, but no one can read it.
You should use readable text files (RTF) instead.
:::slaps knee::: ohhh that’s Rich
“Portable Document Format”. If they can’t open it, fuck them, you don’t want to work for that tire fire.
Yeah, like.. You can literally open it in your web browser wtf
They want it as a word doc so they can edit it and fuck with it before passing it along.
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.
Well, this is obviously ridiculous. If you want to maximise your chances, make it as easy as possible. Send an exe.
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…
Edge defaulting to the default pdf viewer is the bane of my existence
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.
lol, that's a boomer classic
If you can't open 90% of pdfs sent from different sources then you're the problem
I don’t want to work somewhere if they can’t even open a PDF. The fuck kind of Windows 3.1 machines are they using.
Can't open a PDF? Fine, here is a JPEG of my resume.
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.
This is SovCit level.
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.
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.
Most of the time, sentences in a sensible order, we reading easier can make.
Candidate hot tip - if you're going to learn English from a fictional green puppet, choose Kermit The Frog; he is a native English speaker.
Definitive red flag if that is their supposed understanding of computers
I've been in hiring discussions where word doc is looked down on since the candidate is not thinking about how to protect their data from manipulation.
This ladies take is dumb as hell, or as others have mentioned because her company changes applicants information.
Translation: i can't insert a pdf into whatever bullshit system i'm using to thoughtlessly eliminate people
Reminds me of that greentext about an IT guy for a big business who has absolutely no idea what he's doing and just keeps telling people over the phone to install Adobe Acrobat, about 2 or 3 times a day at most, and 98% of the time it works.
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.
A place to post ridiculous posts from linkedIn.com
(Full transparency.. a mod for this sub happens to work there.. but that doesn't influence his moderation or laughter at a lot of posts.)
