The short version: send a PDF unless someone specifically asks for Word. The longer version is worth reading mainly because the advice to avoid PDFs is still repeated, and it has been out of date for roughly a decade.
Why PDF is the default
- The layout is fixed. A DOCX re-flows depending on the reader's version of Word, installed fonts, and page settings. Your carefully spaced one-pager can arrive as an awkward one-and-a-bit.
- Modern parsers handle it well. Every major applicant tracking system extracts text from PDFs reliably. This is the claim people doubt, and it stopped being a real concern years ago.
- It cannot be casually altered. Relevant when an agency is submitting you to a client.
- It opens the same everywhere — phone, browser, tablet — without a Word licence.
When DOCX is the right answer
| Situation | Format |
|---|---|
| Company career portal or direct application | |
| Emailing a hiring manager | |
| Agency or external recruiter | DOCX — they re-format before submitting you |
| The posting explicitly asks for Word | DOCX, without arguing |
| Internal HR system that rejects PDFs | DOCX |
| Some public sector and academic portals | Whatever the form states |
The agency case is the genuine one. Recruitment agencies routinely add their own header, adjust formatting to their client's house style, or strip your contact details before forwarding you. Given a PDF, they will either ask for a Word version or retype it — and retyping introduces errors with your name on them.
Beyond that, follow explicit instructions exactly. A posting that asks for Word and receives a PDF signals that you do not read requirements carefully, which is a strange first impression to make over a file extension.
Formats to avoid
- Pages, ODT, or RTF — may not open at all on the reader's machine.
- A Google Docs link — requires the reader to have access, and it may change after they look at it. Export and attach.
- Images or scans in any wrapper — invisible to parsers, as above.
- ZIP archives — frequently stripped by mail servers and corporate filters.
- DOC, the pre-2007 Word format. Use DOCX.
The file name
A small thing that gets noticed, because the recruiter sees the name in their inbox and in a folder of two hundred others.
File names
Works
- Priya-Raman-Resume.pdf
- Priya-Raman-Resume-Senior-Analyst.pdf
- Priya-Raman-CV.pdf
Avoid
- resumefinalv3(1).pdf
- Resume.pdf
- CV updated march ACTUAL FINAL.docx
- document (2).pdf
Use your name, the word resume or CV, and optionally the role. Hyphens rather than spaces, because spaces become %20 in some systems and look untidy in a URL.
What actually matters more than the format
File format is a five-second decision that people spend far too long on. These checks matter considerably more:
- The text is selectable — highlight a line to confirm
- Contact details are in the document body, not a page header
- Pasting the file into a plain text editor gives readable, correctly ordered text
- Fonts are embedded or standard, so nothing substitutes oddly
- Links are real hyperlinks, not bare text a reader has to retype
- The file is under about 2MB — a photo-heavy export can balloon well past this
- It is named Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf
The copy-paste test in the third item is the single most useful check available, and it catches genuine parsing problems that no choice of file format would fix. The full set of layout issues it exposes is covered in the ATS-friendly resume guide.
Frequently asked questions
Is PDF or Word better for a resume?
PDF for almost every application: the layout is fixed, it opens identically everywhere, and modern applicant tracking systems parse it reliably. Use DOCX when an agency recruiter asks, since they re-format before submitting you to their client, or when a posting explicitly requires Word.
Do applicant tracking systems have trouble reading PDFs?
Not text-based ones. Every major system extracts text from a normal PDF without difficulty. The old warning came from PDFs containing scans or exported images, which are unreadable — check by trying to highlight a line of text in your file.
Should I ever send both a PDF and a Word version?
When emailing a person directly and genuinely unsure, attaching both is harmless and occasionally useful. On an application form, upload only what is asked for — an extra file tends to confuse the process rather than help it.
What should I name my resume file?
Your name, the word resume or CV, and optionally the role: Priya-Raman-Resume.pdf. Use hyphens rather than spaces. The recruiter sees this name alongside hundreds of others, and “resume_final_v3(1).pdf” undercuts an otherwise careful application.