Making a DocX Resume with AI is Finally Possible (Using a Single Prompt)

Despite the title of this post, there is one thing I have to admit upfront:

I hate Word and .docx files.

Especially when it comes to visually rich documents that go beyond text with some headings, it can be a painful experience.

It is also difficult to generate and edit UI components using (LLMs primarily produce plain text or Markdown)

• They are difficult to enrich with visual elements like tables, cells and colours. (It is all possible, but doing it in Word is just a terrible experience)
• They do not encourage reusability (think of CSS, LaTeX and other powerful tools and frameworks for reusing the same components or elements).

And probably a bunch of more drawbacks compared to modern formats.

Despite all these drawbacks, it still has one huge advantage over many alternatives, including those produced by AI:

Everyone knows how to use and edit word files.

I learnt this the hard way a few years ago when I was organising a CV preparation workshop as a volunteer, where we interviewed the participants and helped them create CVs for the job market.

I was responsible for setting up the software, so I tried to use AI to generate the layout and let the participants edit the HTML in a WYSIWYG interface (similar to what many CV generation SaaS offer). For the tech folks among us, it was a no-brainer, but for the participants, it turned out to be a terrible idea.

Why? Because even if the WYSIWYG interface is zero code and self-explanatory, they still need to look for the tools to use, and nobody wants to do that when they are busy figuring out what to put in their CV. We pivoted to other solutions to keep things moving.

Recently, we started talking about better alternatives again and found one that combines the best of both worlds.

Use the Claude Docx skill to create a DocX CV that participants can download and edit offline.

Here's how it works:

• We feed the AI the DocX generation skill.
• The AI then interviews the user.
• Once it has all the necessary information, it uses the skill to generate the DocX file.
• Finally, the user can download, copy, print and edit the document themselves.