Resume & Cover Letter Template

A LaTeX-based resume and cover letter template. All content is fictional — built around Alex Carter, a made-up Senior Backend Engineer, as a realistic demo of what the template looks like filled in.

Resume

Cover Letter

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About Alex Carter

Alex Carter is a fictional character — a Senior Backend Engineer based in Berlin with 8+ years of experience in payments and logistics systems. The resume and cover letter are pre-filled with realistic content: real-sounding companies (Northbridge Payments, Orbit Commerce, Cobalt Logistics), concrete metrics, and a cover letter addressed to a fictional fintech company. It's all made up, but written to look like the real thing so you can see exactly how the template holds up with actual content.

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Project Structure

config.tex                  ← theme, section toggles, photo on/off
shared/
  profile/
    basic-information.tex   ← name, title, location
    contact.tex             ← email, phone, GitHub, LinkedIn, website
  themes/                   ← classic | merchant | monochrome | trace
  styles/                   ← typography, layout, shared class
  fonts/                    ← Barlow, Fraunces, IBM Plex, Inter
resume/
  main.tex                  ← resume entry point
  content/
    summary.tex             ← career summary bullets
    experience.tex          ← work experience entries
    skills.tex              ← skills table
    education.tex           ← education entries
    projects.tex            ← personal/side projects
    languages.tex           ← spoken languages
cover-letter/
  main.tex                  ← cover letter entry point
  content/
    meta.tex                ← target role, company, recipient info
    body.tex                ← letter body text

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Customizing

Your personal info lives in two files:

• shared/profile/basic-information.tex — name, title, location
• shared/profile/contact.tex — email, phone, social links

Everything else (experience, education, projects, skills) is in resume/content/. Each section is its own file.

For the cover letter, update cover-letter/content/meta.tex with the company name, role, and recipient, then rewrite the body in cover-letter/content/body.tex.

To switch themes, open config.tex and uncomment one of:

\input{shared/themes/classic}
\input{shared/themes/merchant}
\input{shared/themes/monochome}
\input{shared/themes/trace}

Section visibility is also controlled in config.tex — flip any section on or off with \setboolean{showProjects}{true}. You can also toggle the profile photo and page number footer from there.

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Tools & Setup

This resume and cover letter are built with LaTeX and require a TeX distribution and supporting tools to compile and maintain. Below are setup instructions for Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Windows Setup

Required:

• MikTeX - A modern TeX distribution for Windows

  • Download: https://miktex.org/download
  • Provides pdflatex, xdvlatex, and package management
  • On-the-fly package installation supported

• Perl - Required for latexmk script processing

  • Option 1: Strawberry Perl (standalone, recommended)
    • Download: https://strawberryperl.com/
  • Option 2: ActivePerl
  • Option 3: Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

• latexmk - Automation tool for LaTeX compilation

  • Included with most TeX distributions
  • Handles multi-pass compilation and dependency tracking

VS Code Extensions (Recommended):

• LaTeX by Mathematic Inc
  • Language support and syntax highlighting for .tex files
• LaTeX Workshop by James Yu
  • Advanced editor features, preview, compile, autocomplete, and color support
  • Seamless integration with MikTeX

Setup Command (Windows):

# Verify installations
pdflatex --version
perl --version
latexmk -version

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Linux Setup

Debian/Ubuntu:

# Install TeX Live (complete LaTeX distribution)
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install texlive-full texlive-latex-extra

# Install Perl (usually pre-installed)
sudo apt-get install perl

# Install latexmk
sudo apt-get install latexmk

Fedora/RHEL:

sudo dnf install texlive-scheme-full
sudo dnf install perl
sudo dnf install latexmk

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S texlive-most texlive-latex latexmk perl

VS Code Extensions:

• LaTeX by Mathematic Inc
• LaTeX Workshop by James Yu

Verify Installation:

pdflatex --version
perl --version
latexmk -version

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macOS Setup

Using Homebrew (Recommended):

# Install Homebrew if not already installed
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

# Install MacTeX (macOS TeX distribution)
brew install --cask mactex

# Install Perl (usually pre-installed on macOS)
brew install perl

# Install latexmk
brew install latexmk

Alternative: Direct MacTeX Installation:

• Download MacTeX from: https://www.tug.org/mactex/
• Includes all necessary LaTeX tools and utilities

VS Code Extensions:

• LaTeX by Mathematic Inc
• LaTeX Workshop by James Yu

Verify Installation:

pdflatex --version
perl --version
latexmk -version

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Compilation

Once tools are installed, compile the resume or cover letter:

Using latexmk (Recommended):

# Compile resume
cd resume
latexmk -pdf main.tex

# Compile cover letter
cd ../cover-letter
latexmk -pdf main.tex

Direct compilation:

cd resume
pdflatex main.tex

Output: PDF files will be generated as main.pdf in respective directories.

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Development Workflow

1. Edit source files in VS Code with LaTeX Workshop
   • Syntax highlighting and autocomplete
   • Real-time preview enabled
2. Run compilation via latexmk or VS Code command palette
3. View output as PDF in VS Code preview or external viewer
4. Iterate on content until satisfied

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Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
MikTeX packages not found	Run MikTeX Console → Update → Check for package updates
Perl not recognized (Windows)	Ensure Strawberry Perl is in system PATH; restart terminal after install
LaTeX Workshop preview not working	Verify latexmk is installed and in PATH
Font errors (Barlow, Fraunces, etc.)	Ensure fonts are in shared/fonts/ directory or installed system-wide
Permission denied on Linux/Mac	Run chmod +x latexmk or use sudo if needed

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Contributing

This is mostly a personal reference repo, but contributions are welcome if something is genuinely broken or you have something worth adding.

What's in scope:

• Bug fixes — something in the template that doesn't compile or renders incorrectly
• New themes — additional color/style variants in shared/themes/
• LaTeX class and style improvements — better spacing, layout fixes, cleaner macros
• New section layouts — e.g. a publications or volunteering section
• Typos and documentation fixes

How to contribute:

1. Open an issue first and describe what you want to fix or add — this avoids wasted effort if it's out of scope or already being worked on
2. Once discussed, fork the repo and create a branch named after what you're doing (e.g. fix/photo-alignment or feat/publications-section)
3. Make your changes, make sure everything compiles cleanly
4. Open a pull request referencing the issue

Keep PRs focused — one thing per PR. Don't mix a theme addition with a layout fix.

License — CC BY-NC 4.0

This template is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. You're free to use, modify, and share it — including for your own resume — as long as you credit the original project. What's not allowed is using it commercially: selling it, wrapping it into a paid template pack, or offering it through a resume builder or marketplace.

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Made with ❤️ — If this saved you some time, buy me a coffee ☕