Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?

toot.cat

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 472 posts

Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?

#91

Post by moralestapia »

jeroenhd wrote: post #42

In 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…

>Documents like these shouldn't be automatically processed, they should be reviewed by humans.

That's very nice to think about but in the real world if people don't match some exact keywords they get thrown away. HR is looking for "node.js" but you wrote it like "nodejs"? Though luck pal, bye. HR wants a "computer scientist" but you have a degree in "computer science"? Same, automatically discarded.

If anything, a standard format would at least allow people to classify themselves/others correctly and without ambiguity.

Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?

#92

Post by tchanglington »

polote wrote: post #77

There is one, it is just proprietary https://linkedin.com

This is super obvious and software developers who use open source tend to always think that open source software is the solution.

Sometimes it’s an economics problem. Problems need incentives before they can be solved.

Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?

#95

Post by jonnycomputer »

One of the things I definitely liked about applying to smaller software shops is the ease of applying. I just sent then my resume, with an email. But anything big required endless customization to suit each's requirements, formats, etc. It was a damn pain in the bacon, and waste of time.

Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?

#96

Post by dpeck »

ravenstine wrote: post #64
jeroenhd wrote: post #42

In 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.

Quaint to think so, but no. If a system is using automated scanning and the document doesn’t scan correctly the recruiter is not going through the ones that didn’t work.

I’d wager in many cases they aren’t even aware of an failure to process a resume occurring.

Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?

#97

Post by jeffrogers »

There have been attempts at this (e.g. the hResume microformat) and you can use schema.org schemas to build one up, but beyond picking up basic data like name, address, telephone number, etc... parsing resumes is challenging. People's experience doesn't always fit nice and neatly into the fields the schemas imagine and the incentive to game such systems also leads to irregular data.

Re: Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?

#98

Post by edgyquant »

Traster wrote: post #51

If you really want a job at my company, and the level at which you decide "this isn't worth my time" is 2 minutes to enter your details then you weren't a good fit in the first place. There are genuine reasons to turn down stupid requests in interview (ridiculous coding tests) but "Re-enter all your details into this form" isn't that hard, and if you really think you want the job then it's a very small price to pay.…

Typing the same details a dozen times every time you change jobs is inefficient. That’s low end, people who aren’t engineers have to apply to way more than that.
Post reply on HN