Resume Builder in the (digital) news

Since its release on December 10, the Resume Builder has been featured in a number of blogs and articles. Lots of good feedback and lively discussion from all over the world:

• LinkedIn Resume Builder Takes the Hassle Out of Updating Your Resume
• HOW TO: Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
• LinkedIn’s Resume Builder Turns Your LinkedIn Profile Into an Online Resume
• Winner or Loser? The newest LinkedIn product – Resume Builder
• NEW at LinkedIn: The Resume Builder
• Resume Builder – Aus dem Profil eine Drucksache bauen
• LinkedIn Resume and CV Creator Tool
• Resume Builder: Create A Resume From Your LinkedIn Profile
• Resume Builder Comes To LinkedIn
• LinkedIn Resume Builder – Another Reason You Should Be Online!
• Create your Resume from LinkedIn Profile
• Turn your LinkedIn Profile into a Printable Resume
  
• LinkedIn has a new resume feature
• Make impressive and printable resume with Linkedin Resume Builder
• Turn your LinkedIn Profile into a Resume with LinkedIn Resume Builder
• Professional, sharp resume in a flash? It’s LinkedIn Resume Builder
• Morph Your LinkedIn Profile Into A Resume
• Linkedin’s New Tool Lets You Create A Professional CV Offline
• Convert Your LinkedIn Profile to Resumes Easily
• LinkedIn zet belangrijke stap in CV markt met ‘Resume Builder’
• Create Your Resume In Seconds Using LinkedIn

Don't worry, we won't let popularity get in our way. New features baking in the oven:

1. The ability to order and show/hide individual items within a section. You can already reorder and hide entire sections, such as all of "summary" or "experience", but with the next release you'll be able to do the same for a single job in "experience" or a single phone number or address in "contact".
2. Email address. Complete contact information on a resume is important. The Resume Builder already allows you to include your address, phone number and websites, and soon you'll be able to add email address too!
3. Embeddable resumes. Want to include your resume in your own website? Soon you'll be able to.

Got some feedback? Let me know on the Resume Builder IdeaScale page.

New features: certifications, publications, patents, languages, bug fixes and more

The Resume Builder just received a small update:

1. New sections: certifications, publications, patents and languages. Fill these out in your profile and they'll automatically be added to your resume. 
2. All dates will now show months in addition to years. If you change jobs or schools a lot, the dates on your resume should make a lot more sense now.
3. Sections menu now auto-saves
4. Several UI tweaks, including positioning of dates
5. A number of bug fixes, including making Resume Builder a bit more robust & transparent in handling errors.  

Try it out and let me know what you think!

LinkedIn is experiencing technical difficulties

Update: looks like most of the issues were resolved. LinkedIn and the Resume Builder should be fully operational!

Last weekend, LinkedIn transitioned to a new data center and we are experiencing some intermittent issues as we iron out the kinks. You may see the following issues with the Resume Builder:

• Attempting to view or edit a resume takes you to an error page. Please wait a few minutes and try again.
• You updated your profile but aren't seeing the new data in your resume. Don't worry, your data will show up eventually, but there seems to be a 10-15 minute lag.

LinkedIn is working hard on resolving both of these issues. Thank you for your patience!

Pro tip: format your resume using Markdown

Do you want to be able to include bullet points, bold text, italicized text, hyperlinks and other formatting in your resume? It's easy: just use Markdown syntax in your LinkedIn profile and it'll show up properly formatted in your resume.

For example, to create a bullet point list, put an asterisk before each item in your profile:

* Item 1
* Item 2
* Item 3

When this list is pulled into your Resume, it will show up with proper bullet points:

• Item 1
• Item 2
• Item 3

To make text bold, surround it with two asterisks on each side. For italics, surround the text with underscores.

**This text will be bold**
_This text will be italicized_

In your resume, the two lines above become:

This text will be bold
This text will be italicized

The advantage of this is that Markdown is perfectly understandable in plain text (in your LinkedIn profile), but offers some nice formatting when processed (in your resume). There is a lot more you can do with Markdown, so visit the Markdown syntax page to learn more. Or, if you prefer an interactive version, visit the Showdown website and see how Markdown syntax works on the fly. Finally, you can compare my LinkedIn profile to my resume to see an example of Markdown being used for bullet points and hyperlinks.


One note: there are still some bugs with Resume Builder and some Markdown syntax - especially headers - can break the layout/appearance of your resume. If using Markdown suddenly makes your resume look weird, please report the issue on the Resume Builder IdeaScale page.

Features and bugs

The Resume Builder has only been out for a day, but already lots of features have been requested and bugs uncovered. Here are some of the changes to expect soon:

Features in the pipeline

1. More sections from your profile: certifications, publications, languages, etc.
2. hCard microformat in the markup
3. Show months of employment/education in addition to years
4. Shorter "templates" menu so you don't have to scroll up and down as you change templates
5. Shorter "sections" overlay so it doesn't bleed off the bottom of the page

Bugs

1. If Resume Builder gives you an error page when you try to sign in with LinkedIn, go to your LinkedIn profile and finish filling out your skills/certification/patents/languages section. If you started to fill them out but didn't go all the way, the LinkedIn API fails to return data.
2. Wrong date/time in "last saved" text when editing a resume
3. Dates appear in the wrong positions if you haven't entered a job title or degree/major

Let me know your thoughts

Found an urgent bug? Have an idea for a new feature? Use the Resume Builder IdeaScale page to share your ideas and vote on the ideas of others.

Resume Builder has launched!

The Resume Builder is now live: http://resume.linkedinlabs.com

Turn your LinkedIn Profile into a beautiful resume in seconds. No more messing around with multiple Word and PDF documents scattered all over the computer. Pick a resume template, customize the content, and print and share the result to your heart's content.

Try it out and send me some feedback using the Resume Builder feedback site.