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Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
61–70 of 472 posts
Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
#62I think the same thing about invoicing... especially given the different hoops every company makes you jump through to make your invoice compliant.
Don't they kind of do that at larger organizations with EDI? Or is it still nonstandard between organizations?
EDI is only semi-standardized; in my experience usually each pair of trading partners requires a separate effort (usually the bigger partner imposes the requirement and the smaller one has to make changes). Some difficulties include:
* There are multiple protocols for exchanging EDI documents (AS1, SMTP, FTPS, SFTP...)
* There are multiple standards for the documents themselves (EDIFACT, X12, GS1 XML...)
* There are partner-specific business rules that need to be set up (this partner needs an ASN, that partner requires invoices to be for only one PO each, the other partner can only accept invoices which use their ERP’s internal codes...)
Some of these problems can be papered over with a “VAN” that can translate between standards, but I have yet to see one business send a non-PDF invoice to another without a lot of fuss.
Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
#63I used to work in ontologies, and what I learned is that people would rather get an 80% heuristic solution for dirty data rather than a 100% correct solution for data they have to clean.
The big job sites have resume parsers that work well enough from a PDF or Word doc, and then they don't have to worry about you forgetting a close tag or a mandatory field. Sure, stuff gets lost, but they get 80% of a billion resumes rather than 100% of a million of them. They can't exchange data or even trust what they have, but it's good enough for them to make money. Meanwhile, a competitor demanding good data from its clients never gets off the ground.
Anyway, every data format for human information ends up being either vague (to allow in everything) or impossible (see the myths that programmers believe about names, time, addresses, etc.) You end up giving a string for each field... Then give up, just accept any string, and hope for the best.
Everybody wants Google or some machine learning solution because the formats never work for the information people want to convey. Better solutions could exist but the hacky ones are first to market, in a natural monopoly where there really only needs one good enough product.
If you think a lack of a good resume format is bad, look at electronic health records. Those are far more important to be correct and exchangeable, and even there the cleanup effort is always enormous.
Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
#64In my opinion, there shouldn't be. Documents like these shouldn't be automatically processed, they should be reviewed by humans. Reducing someone's life history to a list of educational institutions and employers feels robotic even for a software developer's mindset. I understand that there are real life problems because companies do use automated processing on applications, but that kind of behaviour shouldn't be en…
I wonder if there's any advantage in using fonts and layout that are adversarial to automated resume processing, as in if something fails to scan then perhaps a human is more likely to actually look at it. But perhaps HR just throws those out.
Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
#65Well... Would you rather apply to a job by sending a pdf that you carefully crafted, or by sending your linkedin profile?
LinkedIn profile for sure.
Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
#66Anti-competitive practise. If they make entering your resume suck, maybe you will only do it on one site (theirs).
I've been hearing people react to current (American) college admissions by saying the problem is the Common Application allowing people to apply to many schools at once.
I would be more likely to locate the problem in increasing numbers of applicants rather than increasing numbers of applications per applicant, but I wouldn't be opposed to seeing a more centralized system go up. American medical schools accept students through such a centralized system. Chinese university admissions isn't centralized to the same degree as American medical schools, but it's still quite centralized, and more formalized.
Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
#67There is! https://jsonresume.org/ But nobody really uses it for data interchange. I use it to render my resume in new layouts now and then. Although, it does let style dictate content sometimes (some templates force you to have dates down to the day for job start and end dates, etc.)
I used a JSON resume once and I like the idea. It didn't help when I had to apply for an unemployment benefit (while still trying to enter the industry) and they asked for my resume as a word document. As you can imagine, I felt like a clown trying to explain that I didn't have a word document because my resume was generated from a JSON file. I did, however, have a PDF on a USB drive I always kept on me but they refu…
My JSON resume is transformed to docx, and only latter to PDF for exactly this reason.
Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
#68In my opinion, there shouldn't be. Documents like these shouldn't be automatically processed, they should be reviewed by humans. Reducing someone's life history to a list of educational institutions and employers feels robotic even for a software developer's mindset. I understand that there are real life problems because companies do use automated processing on applications, but that kind of behaviour shouldn't be en…
Indeed if there were a standard format, there would be competitive advantages to using other channels to showcase your experience
Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
#69In my opinion, there shouldn't be. Documents like these shouldn't be automatically processed, they should be reviewed by humans. Reducing someone's life history to a list of educational institutions and employers feels robotic even for a software developer's mindset. I understand that there are real life problems because companies do use automated processing on applications, but that kind of behaviour shouldn't be en…
Also having this it will give you the User to make 1 resume and apply to millions of jobs. It’s a win / win situation
Downside is when you have to make slight changes each time to better emphasize some aspect of your experience, depending on the job applied for. Recruiting agencies often do this to sex up their candidates chance of winning the job lottery.
Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
#70HR people don’t like changing their procedures. I’ve done numerous interviews large corporations where the first part of the interview process involved copying my printed resume by hand onto sheets of paper so that someone could then type in what I had written into a web browser. Why they couldn’t just copy from my printed resume or accept soft copy in word or ascii I have no answers for. When I joined at Chase Manha…
That sounds like an incredibly unsettling experience.