I’ve got a question for the multitude regarding the use of automated software that an HR department might use to sort resumes. Here’s the setup. I received an email regarding a position for a community college and on the site for responses was a reference to a 50+ page (!) pdf document on how to apply for the position. Some of the advice in this was that they wanted resume/cv’s to be in landscape format, lots of white space and not to change typefaces much. I smell automation, since humans probably would have no issue dealing with “normal” formats using portrait orientation and fairly dense paragraphs. I’m not designing a circus poster so I wouldn’t have given a moments thought to wildly varied typefaces.
In addition, they also discouraged the use of “I” often. In referring to my qualifications and accomplishments, how the hell else would I put the point across? The royal “we”? Refer to myself in the third person?
Like to get some feedback from the minds out there, especially since I have very little experience with academia and or the corporate world. I’ve always gotten my work mostly through a brief initial written app, followed by fairly informal interviews.
Two of the major Recruiting softwares in use by large companies and universities are Oracle PeopleSoft and Oracle Taleo. PeopleSoft Recruiting integrates with a separate Resume extraction software named Resume Mirror by Talent Technology Corp. Taleo has its own Resume extraction tool, but can alternatively use a separate tool like Resume Mirror.
These OCR Resume extraction tools have been around a while and are fairly OK. One model uses the expectation is that the extraction would be the first pass, and the applicant would validate / edit the information before submitting and application.
Although some organizations with massive volumes accept the Resumes and the extraction results without any human intervention or formal application. Instead they use a technique of searching their Resume database for matches to Job requirements. If they get a hit they contact the Resume submitter and ask them to apply. Everyone does it slightly differently.
So, you might spend a few minutes looking at information about Resume Mirror as a starting point to understand what’s going on.
I believe it’s been customary to avoid use of “I” for a long time, quite independent of the use of automated reading software. The way to get your point across is to say something like, “Led NASA mission to Mars” rather than, “I led a NASA mission to Mars.” The first-person pronoun is implied. (After all, who else would you be talking about?)
The allegation with this software is that it searches for certain keywords. If the posting says “must know Java and Oracle” and those keywords are not in your resume, a human never sees it. That’s somewhat appropriate with specific technology - but what if it’s a more esoteric need, like they want a project manager and your resume says “team lead”? I guess the question is, how much common sense does a program have if it can’t read portrait format?
(I assume the anal formatting rules are there for character recognition on scanned papers, not for text-based files?)
If the requirements are that extensive, I have a feeling they have nothing to do with automation, and everything to do with weeding out all the applicants that didn’t follow the instructions to the letter. Sometimes with open positions, you get 1000 applications for 1 slot. Being able to cut those down to 20 applications without even caring about the content (I bet half those people will submit normal portrait resumes, another quarter won’t use the specified whitespace, etc), is very convenient for an HR department.
I don’t think most resume scanning software cares about orientation or font. They extract all the text, ignore the formatting, and then try to parse as if it were a .txt file.
Thank you all for your replies. I spent some time today with the Google reading up on the types of software used in these instances and while the use of “keywords” came up again and again, no mention of unusual formatting was made.
I understand the request to avoid the overuse of “I” in first person narrative, but some of the suggestions for substitutes seem stunted to me. One guide made the point that most readers find “I” to be almost invisible.
The requirements and qualifications listed for the job lead me to believe that they are looking for a unicorn. A rainbow farting unicorn with a diamond encrusted horn. I’m not the unicorn they’re looking for. Move along…