I've reviewed a lot of resumes written with LaTeX and these people tend to have the most trouble with maintaining their resumes. I do not recommend writing a resume with LaTeX.

Microsoft Word is pretty great for resumes if you know how to do it. The key is to create a multi-column layout (one column for Company, one for Job Title, and one for Dates) and to do so using tables. Where people drive themselves crazy with Microsoft Word is when they try to fake a 2 or 3 column layout by hitting space a whole bunch of times. Here's what you do:

• Use a table. In fact, make your entire resume a giant 3-column table.
• Merge columns together as necessary (for example, in the sections with bullets about what you did).
• Make your table borders invisible

And bam! You'll have a nicely organized and easy to maintain resume with Microsoft Word.

That said, please don't create your own resume template. You'll likely fail miserably at it. Feel free to use mine -- www.careercup.com/resume.

If you decide to use LaTeX for resumes, here are some of the issues you'll face.

Issues fitting content onto one page
The biggest issue is that a resume is a precisely styled document where you must fit everything on one page. When you're in that mode -- which you will be, constantly -- when you need to figure out how to cut out one line to stop your resume from wrapping onto two pages, you're going to have a lot of trouble doing that when you can't see what you're doing.

You will be much better off in a WYSIWYG editor, like Word, when you know what will pull you back up to one page.

Styles that are difficult
There are certain styles or templates that are difficult for you to do in LaTeX either because you don't know how to do them or because they're just fundamentally difficult. I'm not sure. But somehow, people who create their resumes with LaTeX have difficulty doing certain things with their resume, like having a resume with multiple columns. They generally wind up with resumes that waste a lot of space.

Again, with Microsoft Word, you know exactly what your resume will look like. It makes it much easier to get it looking just right.

Lack of good resume templates
In almost all cases, a software developer should be using a professional resume template. They should not be just opening up Microsoft Word and typing their resume from scratch. Frankly, you probably aren't that good with design and layout.

Fortunately, there are a ton of great resume templates for Microsoft Word. Does LaTeX have those? Probably not.

(My favorite resume template -- www.careercup.com/resume)

Issues getting it edited by other people
Look, most software developers are pretty bad with creating resumes. Actually, most people are. But especially software developers.

People will be much more effective in reviewing or editing your resume if you give them something in Microsoft Word where they can use track changes.

If you give them a PDF (which is presumably what you'd give them if you created your resume in LaTeX), you'll get many fewer edits because making an edit is much more tedious (requires typing up a line in an email).

Sometimes companies require Word resumes
It's stupid, and they shouldn't, but some companies require resumes created with Microsoft Word.

(That said, when possible, send your resume as a PDF, even if it's created with Word.)

The advantages of LaTeX don't apply to resumes
LaTeX is fantastic for scientific work because of formulas and special characters. Guess what? That doesn't apply to your resume.