published on 05.12.2020

Resume A4 is a side project of mine. It’s one page Hugo Theme that allows you to write your resume in YAML format and keep track of it using git. Also, you can publish it online as a static site using GitLab, GitHub Pages, Netlify, or some other service you are familiar with.

Resume Example
Resume Example

Motivation

A few months back, I was trying to re-generate my résumé but I also wanted to publish it online. So, I looked for single-page HTML templates. None of them fit my needs. I needed a very simple looking CSS and most importantly something easily convertible to PDF.

Now, let’s talk about the benefits of this approach over the normal way e.g. MS Word. First of all, it was a fun project.

Version Control:

Version control is a great benefit. Not a direct feature of this project but when you use something like this instead of MS Word, you also use git. So, now you have version control for your resume. Otherwise, you may have files like this: resume_1.docx, resume_2.docx, resume_final.docx, resume_final_final.docx. It requires more management which costs you in time.

Now Your Resume is Alive:

Another benefit is that you can publish your resume as a static website and share the URL with recruiters or add it on LinkedIn. Now, your resume alive and up-to-date. It’s not just an old pdf file that you don’t even remember when did you last update. You can check out my live resume

Create Different Version in Your Local:

You don’t have to publish it online by the way. You can create different versions and save them as PDFs locally.

Easily Change The Design:

Well, this is arguable but if you are good at CSS, you can create the design you want. CSS was never easy for me, and it never will be. Still, it’s flexible. So, we can change the design however we like.

Data Files:

This one is, definitely, a benefit for me. Because these files brought order and structure to my resume. I think it’s much better to enter data in YAML then display via CSS instead of directly editing through ms word.

Features

  • Simple 2 column design.
  • Configurable sections.
  • Print-friendly, A4 size output, just use your browser or save as PDF.
  • Write your resume in YAML. All content is stored in data files.

I chose a simple design, because simple always works. Alternative styles can be created by editing the CSS. After all, it’s open-source and I would be happy to see merge requests.

How To Use

I assume you are already using Hugo. If you don’t and you understand basic HTML and CSS you can port this easily or you can just try Hugo.

  1. Create a new Hugo Project. hugo new site [path]
  2. Go to the themes folder.
  3. Clone resume-a4: git clone https://gitlab.com/mertbakir/resume-a4.git
  4. Go to exampleSite and copy config.toml to the root directory of your Hugo project.
  5. Open config.toml and add your relevant information.
  6. Copy data folder from exampleSite to the root directory. All you need is that folder.
  7. Create your resume in YAML files.