CV parsing - yes, no or maybe..?

CVs have changed. Instead of going round your local businesses with a folder full of CVs, handing them out and knowing people will read them, the majority of CVs are submitted as part of an online application process and now, there are even CVs that take the form of web pages – all in order to help people stand out more to try and help them get read.

With the amount of applicants for each job, candidates are trying to do things to make their CV something special to try and get it read. However, since the introduction of Applicant Tracking Systems, will this work?

Enter the CV parsing tool.

With the simplest CV parsing tool, the candidate submits their CV which the tool then populates the application form with by extracting data from the CV. Obviously, this saves the candidate time and takes away from unnecessary administration for the HR team who are doing the recruiting. However, this system wasn’t and still isn’t 100% accurate.

Some companies, when asked about CV parsing tools, argue that if candidates aren’t willing to take the time and effort to fill in an application form then they shouldn’t be applying in the first place. Some stricter application forms, for say banks or government jobs, mean that the candidates have to fill in quite a lot of information, a lot of which might not even feature at all on their CV – the application forms themselves collect a lot of data so there wouldn’t be much time saved using a parsing tool.

On the other hand, where CV parsing tools excel is in the speculative job applications.

Intelligent parsing is capable of conducting database searches in the system and finding suitable candidates for a vacancy you have.

What often happens when candidates submit their CVs as a speculative application, is that the recruiter will put them into a folder and they may perhaps get overlooked after a period of time – generally due to the influx of new applications that the recruiter has to sort through for every time there’s a job opening.

An intelligent parsing tool can sift through this speculative candidates pool and by finding similarities, will be able to identify potentially suitable applicants, saving the recruiter having to firstly remember who is in the pool of speculative candidates and secondly, the recruiter having to manually go through this pool and find eligible applicants.

So with regards to time saving and ease of application process for candidates, I’m not sure that CV parsing tools are an absolute must for all recruitment teams to have – perhaps used as part of an applicant tracking system, but it still wouldn’t be suitable for every company (with the more complex applications I mentioned earlier).

Also, with candidates trying to make their CVs different and innovative, parsing tools are going to have to become extremely clever with their technology to still be able to identify the right data when each candidate doesn’t use a strict CV format.

However, CV parsing is most certainly not dead – when used in the right way, recruitment teams are going to be identifying potentially great candidates who might well have been ignored or left along the wayside of the recruitment process..

-Emily

With thanks to Mike Sandiford for his help during my research stage of this post!

Comments

[Gareth Jenkins]

Nice post Emily! I blogged just a couple of days ago on a related theme to this http://www.4mat.com/blog/the-cv-vs-linkedin-profile-debate-misses-the-point--blog-12561322112

CV parsers do indeed do a decent job - one that will continue for a while yet. But ultimately we need to develop standards for getting online profile and CV building platforms to talk to each other better than just via analysing and attempting to understand unstructured text documents. This will be a long time in the coming though!

[Emily]

Thanks for your comment, Gareth. I agree-I fear that proper developments in the communication 'twixt profiles and CV building platforms may take a while to materialise.. We wait and hope though, right??

[CV Format]

reinforcing the positive attributes

[Susanne Minneker]

Each company hiring process is unique and it is up to the recruiters, IT-staff and CV Parser developers to set the internal standards in the parsing and search process. Profile and CV Parsing is all about saving valuable time to both, employer and candidate and simplify searches in a pool of candidates and social media profiles. Not to miss managing expectations when it comes to intelligent technical solutions to support the HR day to day work.

[Emily]

Thanks for your comment, Susanne. I agree that the idea of CV parsing is to save time for employers and candidates but I'm unconvinced that parsing tools are developed enough as yet to out-do a recruitment management system/highly efficient ATS, combined with a well designed application process, when it comes to saving time with the most effectiveness.