What your documents might reveal
- Your personal name if different from your professional name
- Home address from document properties
- Previous employers from template information
- Edit history — showing who else worked on your resume
- Document creation dates that might reveal employment gaps
- Comments or tracked changes with sensitive information
Quick checklist before sending
- Convert to PDF format (most recruiters prefer this)
- Remove all author information and personal details
- Clean creation and modification dates
- Delete comments, tracked changes, and revision history
- Name your file professionally:
JaneDoe_Resume.pdf - Verify that all content appears correctly in the final version
Step-by-step: cleaning Word documents
Using Word's Document Inspector
- Open your document in Microsoft Word
- Click File → Info → Check for Issues → Inspect Document
- Select all checkboxes and click "Inspect"
- Click "Remove All" for each flagged category
- Save the document with a new name
- Convert to PDF using Save As → PDF format
Important: The Document Inspector doesn't catch everything. For maximum privacy, use a dedicated metadata removal tool like RemoveMD on the final PDF.
Cleaning PDF documents
language
Quick method — RemoveMD
- Go to RemoveMD.com
- Upload your resume PDF
- Process — all metadata removed
- Download the clean version
- Verify the final result
picture_as_pdf
Adobe Acrobat Pro
- Open PDF in Acrobat
- Tools → Protect → Remove Hidden Info
- Review and remove found items
- Save the cleaned document
- Verify via File → Properties
Metadata to always remove from applications
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Author name
— Might show personal rather than professional name
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Company information
— From templates or previous employment documents
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Creation dates
— Could reveal how old your resume really is
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Revision dates
— Might show periods of inactivity or unemployment
cancel
Comments
— Notes to yourself or from others who helped with your resume
cancel
Template information
— If you used a template from another source
Professional file naming
- Resume:
FirstName_LastName_Resume.pdf - Cover Letter:
FirstName_LastName_Cover_Company.pdf - References:
FirstName_LastName_References.pdf
Avoid generic names like "resume.pdf" or "document1.pdf" — they get lost among hundreds of applications.
Pro tip: Once you have a perfectly cleaned resume, save it as a template. This ensures future updates start from a clean base and saves time on every new application.
Clean your resume metadata
PDF and DOCX — free, no account required.