RÉSUMÉ ENCYCLOPEDIA
SUMMARY:
Don’t send a PDF to anyone in an employer’s organization unless you are certain that person prefers PDF to any other format. Disregard any lists of “acceptable document formats” you may see.
In certain situations in certain industries, such as engineering or IT, PDF is a standard format for résumés. But even in those industries, if you’re sending your résumé to HR, you should send a Word document. You can send a PDF to the non-HR decision-makers if they ask for one.
Don’t EVER send a PDF made by scanning a paper résumé.