You know, if a resume came my way that was in comic sans I’d definitely read it, thinking “here’s a wiseass who’s confident in their abilities. I’d probably like working with them.”
I usually try to submit a resume in html format. One time I applied for a job, and their online application rejected my upload, telling me it had to be PDF, Word, or plain text format. In frustration I copy/pasted the text content into an emacs buffer (not the html itself, just the text shown in the browser). I tried to pretty it up a bit, but forgot to save my final draft, so the interviewers got a resume that started like this:
;; This buffer is for notes you don't want to save, and for Lisp evaluation.
;; If you want to create a file, visit that file with C-x C-f,
;; then enter the text in that file's own buffer.
What followed was extremely poorly formatted plain text.
Needless to say, I felt really embarrassed to find this out during the interview, and was baffled that the internal recruiter had even considered me.
One of the interviewers said he thought I was "trying to be all retro hipster".
My HTML resume has a print stylesheet. If someone asks for a PDF resume I tell them to print out the HTML page to PDF or do it myself and send it to them.
I wouldn't reject it straight away but I'd be wary, I would make assumptions:
- They don't even know it's not professional, which seems a basic thing to me. Are they socially unaware?
- They know it's not professional and did it to have a laugh with friends ("the face the HR must have made hahaha")?
- They try to make a statement "form doesn't matter, only skills do" which I do not necessarily agree on
I could also make charitable assumptions but my point is that it's definitely a risk
Forcing your personal brand of silliness/quirkiness on someone before you have established enough of a rapport with them to know what they’re likely to find funny is a sure-fire recipe for annoying them.
I wouldn’t automatically reject such a resume but it would absolutely be a negative signal.
