[HN Gopher] Tell HN: "Upload your resume and then type it out" i...
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Tell HN: "Upload your resume and then type it out" is hurting your
company
I understand why it exists - text is easier to query than reading a
resume, but it's a terrible and outdated design pattern that needs
to go. But good news: there are better ways! Some possible
solutions and suggestions: -Use a list of checkbox options for
candidates to click skills/requirements that you want for the role.
If you need SQL, JS, Python, and you believe a CS degree is
necessary, then let candidates click which ones they have. No more
messing with text! Bonus: You could add some kind of percentage of
skills match metric when reviewing applicants (you should still
review resumes, however). Bonus #2: You can autofill the job
posting with a list of desired skills instead of needing to type
them out - just select which ones you need when creating the
posting. -You don't need user-entered text fields for keyword
matching. Extracting text from PDFs and Word Docs is trivial. If
your text extract fails or misses a min word count threshold, just
trigger a secondary step for HR to review and manually copy the
text and enter it. Point is, stop making users manually enter the
text when applying, just pull it out yourself. -If you insist on
candidates typing out their resume, stop trying to extract text
from resumes to autofill the application form. Personally, I'd
prefer to just type it out rather than review it and fix all of the
inevitable mistakes (or more likely, clear the fields and just
enter it myself). I have considerable experience hiring engineers,
and I can tell you concretely that: 1. Strong candidates are hard
to find. 2. A single bad hire can sink a team. 3. Technical
interviewing is hard and far from solved. Given these three
things, why make it harder than it has to be by using a badly
designed system when a few changes to the logistical process can
fix so much? And if the bosses balk, maybe sell it like this: the
existence of your company depends on good hiring, so maybe assign
an engineer or two to spend a few months building this out. Not to
be all "Dropbox is easy build" - but the basic functionality for
something like this is not terribly more complex than a CRUD app
with file uploading. I know that's oversimplifying, but I bet you
get my point.
Author : valar_m
Score : 135 points
Date : 2022-02-10 19:19 UTC (3 hours ago)
| heydonovan wrote:
| When job hunting, I'll skip those companies that require me to
| type out my resume. That's why I wrote the resume in the first
| place. Similar feelings towards those that want it in Microsoft
| Word format. Companies have their own filtering mechanisms, and
| so do I.
| alx__ wrote:
| Requiring a MS Word format means they're using ATS software.
| Which parses it and pass/rejects it based on predefined phrases
| they're looking for. Kinda garbage system.
|
| To me that means their hiring process is extremely formal and
| not worth my time.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > Similar feelings towards those that want it in Microsoft Word
| format.
|
| What's wrong with .docx format? You can create it using open
| source office software. In my experience most forms are smart
| enough to parse .docx just as well as the obsolete .doc.
|
| Besides, what other formats do you want them to accept? PDF,
| sure, TXT, sure. It seems silly to avoid word documents.
| david_allison wrote:
| .tex to .doc(x) will typically lose formatting and require
| rewriting the resume.
| jstx1 wrote:
| Word documents are most often required by 3rd party
| recruiters who want a convenient way to edit your CV before
| sharing it with an employer. It's not that common but it
| happens. That's why it's best to use pdf instead. If they
| insist on a word document, you can just refuse to work with
| them.
| derekp7 wrote:
| Pasting a picture of each page from a PDF in the Word doc
| works too, to keep them from editing it. Not sure if there
| is a way to hide the keywords in it (paste it in
| white/on/white text, 1-pt font, and have the picture
| overlay the text?)
| jstx1 wrote:
| Picture in a word doc sounds like the worst of everything
| - looks unprofessional to a human and it doesn't work
| with automated CV parsers.
| Froedlich wrote:
| Hiring in my area, before I retired: (and before everything
| went online)
|
| They ask for a resume and tell you when to be there.
|
| You show up at the appointed time with the resume. After
| waiting half an hour. a secretary hands you a generic Office
| Depot tear-off employment application.
|
| After another forty-five minutes to an hour, you get to see
| whoever's in charge of hiring. They're looking at the Office
| Depot sheet, and about half the time they don't even have your
| resume, which was probably round-filed by the secretary.
|
| The hiring person isn't sure what job you're applying for, so
| they leave the office to consult with someone else. Twenty
| minutes later they return and either tell you they're not
| hiring, or they'll call you next week. (they don't)
|
| My usual response was to send them an invoice for two hours of
| office workflow consulting at my entirely reasonable rate. None
| of them ever paid up, of course, but they stole two hours of my
| time.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Same here, if I have to retype my CV I'm your obnoxious web
| form, its just not worth the effort and I look elsewhere
| klyrs wrote:
| My resume is written in latex; I'd just paste the source into
| the box...
| wldcordeiro wrote:
| It's made even worse if you have internal job postings and then
| route these people through the same process as new hires. What do
| I need to be filling in my resume and work history for? I work
| for you.
| fires10 wrote:
| This one has always bothered me. I literally knew the people
| who were doing the hiring and they knew me. However, still had
| to jump through hoops. Got blocked by HR and they were not
| allowed to even interview me.
| junon wrote:
| Another suggestion:
|
| I put effort into keeping my LinkedIn up to date. It's not there
| to attract recruiters. Read it.
| joefife wrote:
| Yup. I simply exit the process if I'm confronted with this
| nonsense.
|
| I know they're popular to hate, but I really rate IT recruiters
| for removing the pain out of job hunting.
|
| Perhaps I've just been lucky, but my involvement with recruiters
| seems to be little more than an introductory chat about my CV,
| and they line up interviews.
|
| I've found them hassle free.
| Shared404 wrote:
| How do you find these good recruiters?
|
| I'm currently job hunting, and a bit tired of sending out 3 - 5
| apps a day via indeed or $COMPANY_SITE. Actually talking to
| someone would be nice.
| bsuvc wrote:
| I should be able to create my resume in yaml or json structure
| that conforms to some well known spec.
|
| Tooling could also be built to sync that with LinkedIn or
| generate a humane readable PDF version if you need it.
| karmajunkie wrote:
| Seriously, how is this not a thing that exists already?
|
| Edit: huh, from another thread, apparently it does:
| https://jsonresume.org/
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I would like to point out that extracting text from PDFs is not
| that trivial if you use a columnar format.
| [deleted]
| agentdrtran wrote:
| As much as I hate Linkedin, everyone should take LinkedIn's easy
| apply, or at least allow auto-filling from Linkedin.
| jstx1 wrote:
| EasyApply seems like the biggest black hole out of all of them.
| I have 0% response rate; I've never even received a rejection
| from it.
| bradleysmith wrote:
| that has not been my experience. I get feedback from LI on
| views and resume downloads, and I get emails for next steps
| AND rejections. Granted, I'm sure I have some no-replies from
| there, but it's so easy to apply to more I hardly notice or
| worry.
|
| If I really like a place, I'll apply at their native portal
| as well as their Easy Apply.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| Honestly, requiring a resume at all is kind of a pain. As much as
| I dislike LinkedIn, all of the job contacts I get are on there,
| and it's kept more up to date than my resume. The person reaching
| out has obviously read my page, or else they wouldn't be reaching
| out. Yet half of them then ask for an emailed copy of my resume,
| even though the next person in the process always just looks
| through my LinkedIn again.
| rybosworld wrote:
| "Strong candidates are hard to find."
|
| I think this is largely self-inflicted - for the reasons you
| mentioned as well as others.
| blt wrote:
| I wish there could be a centralized matchmaker service for job-
| seekers and companies. I guess LinkedIn is kind of like that, but
| there is not enough employer buy-in. Job-seekers cannot assume
| that they are being considered for a position just because their
| LinkedIn profile indicates that they would be a fit.
| 9erdelta wrote:
| the last two times I've gone on a job hunt, I only look at and
| apply for jobs on LinkedIn with "Easy Apply". I am not going to
| maintain a resume, a LinkedIn, _and_ fill all that info in on
| some janky form for one company.
| waoush wrote:
| I tend to not fill out these forms because I have a resume, and
| then I get rejected without an interview for jobs I am almost
| literally verbatim a match for.
|
| Do recruiters even read resumes anymore? I am genuinely not sure
| at this point.
| rybosworld wrote:
| I think the vast majority of recruiters are not qualified to
| read (understand) the resumes that are coming in.
|
| Would you want a person with no understanding of football in
| charge of drafting for your football team?
|
| This is an exaggerated example but not far off from the
| reality.
| bitwize wrote:
| Recruiters "come across" resumes based on a keyword search.
| Then they attempt to reconstruct them by wasting your time with
| questions like "What are your skills?" and "Walk me through
| your last few years of experience".
| tanseydavid wrote:
| It is a fancy version of the game "Go Fish."
| brailsafe wrote:
| > Do recruiters even read resumes anymore? I am genuinely not
| sure at this point.
|
| Did they ever read resumes?
| waoush wrote:
| Up until last year, the only real problems I ever had with
| recruiters were in staffing agencies. I feel like at least
| prior to the pandemic, people did at least skim over your
| resume to get an idea of who you were as a whole... I would
| get interviews, but nowadays I am lucky if I even get an
| automated rejection e-mail.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| So are you saying you DONT want that help desk job I emailed
| you 200 times about?
| bitwize wrote:
| Do you know anyone who might be looking for this kind of
| role? No? I'm SO GLAD that ALL your friends have work!
| Root_Denied wrote:
| I get that this is a facetious comment, but I'd like to
| highlight to two groups my social network falls into.
|
| Anyone I know who is technical isn't looking for a 6
| month contract role in helpdesk halfway across the
| country that requires on-site presence.
|
| Anyone else I know, even those who are unemployed, is
| non-technical and unqualified for the role.
| bitwize wrote:
| Which makes it all the more infuriating that recruiters
| get snippy when I refuse to help them grow their network
| for free.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| You know what else hurts your company? When a well-qualified
| candidate goes to the trouble of figuring out who the hiring
| manager is, reaches out to them on LinkedIn, asks if they'd check
| out their profile and if they'd chat about the position for 10-15
| minutes...
|
| ...and you get back (paraphrased) "Hi KB, I would look forward to
| receiving your application."
|
| I am not wasting _at least_ an hour of my time writing a cover
| letter, touching base with my references (which they demand in
| the application - are they fucking joking?), and tailoring my
| resume to the job....
|
| ...if the hiring manager can 't be bothered to indicate in the
| slightest way that they even so much as glanced at my profile, or
| spend _10 minutes_ on the damn phone for a position that 's been
| open for _6 months_.
| tuckerpo wrote:
| I find a position that seems interesting and then find a
| recruiter/hiring manager from the company on LinkedIn and toss
| them my resume. Has gone pretty well. Although after I get a real
| human being's direct attention, they usually ask me to submit a
| formal app through their job portal for what I assume are
| logistical reasons anyway.
| atlgator wrote:
| Good way to overcome HR's arbitrary filters.
| aaronchall wrote:
| Steel man argument for the opposing position:
|
| At a certain point, no matter how well paid, you're going to want
| your future employee to do something that seems pointlessly
| redundant to them, and to do it as conscientiously as possible in
| spite of not knowing the importance of the task you want them to
| do.
|
| Might as well get that test out of the way as soon as possible,
| with their own document that they can supply to cross-validate
| it, right?
|
| /steel man argument
|
| Is this actually good? Are you going to needlessly turn away
| really smart people who should be objecting to seemingly
| pointless tasks? Should really good employees _object outright_
| to doing things they think are a waste of time? Maybe they
| should? Or maybe they should acquiesce after a bit of pushback
| even if they don 't understand it?
|
| Maybe this is an adequate speed-bump for applicants - if simply
| accepting resumes means that you get a much greater percentage of
| unqualified applications, perhaps it's worth it to select for
| those willing to tolerate the exercise?
| Animats wrote:
| _At a certain point, no matter how well paid, you 're going to
| want your future employee to do something that seems
| pointlessly redundant to them, and to do it as conscientiously
| as possible in spite of not knowing the importance of the task
| you want them to do._
|
| For which they have to pay you. That does not apply when the
| company is marketing itself to you.
| aaronchall wrote:
| That's a very good point, and I think it's a suboptimal
| filter.
|
| But I also think this explains the status quo.
| alexjplant wrote:
| Around a decade ago I built a resume database for the sourcing
| team at a bigcorp that I worked at. I found a resume parsing tool
| [1] that had a .NET API and we bought a license for it. It worked
| phenomenally well on 90% of the resumes that we threw at it; we
| were able to extract job histories, technical keywords, and
| location very simply. As far as I'm concerned this is a solved
| problem... if a 20-year-old kid could do it back in 2011 then it
| shouldn't be an issue now.
|
| [1] https://www.sovren.com/
| itake wrote:
| I used this tool in 2012 at a resume hosting service. Resume
| parsing is really hard and this library did a barely ok job
| with parsing resume. The problem is there is so many skills
| with weird names on resumes. For example, programming languages
| have weird names like "go" or "b", so if you just look for
| certain skills/keywords, you're going to have a bad time.
|
| You might say, "well if the person is a Y, then just look for
| skills for Y." But people change careers all the time. They may
| start off as Y and move into Z, where "go" in Y and Z meant
| different things.
|
| No algorithm can perfectly parse a resume like a human can.
| opportune wrote:
| A lot of times this is a problem with the software they contract.
| Taleo in particular has an absolutely terrible UX.
|
| The vast majority of companies don't have an in-house solution.
|
| I've noticed there is some other SAAS a lot of companies are
| using lately for their hiring portal where there is a single page
| for both the specific job, all the fields you need to enter to
| apply (notably not including rehashing all your past experience)
| and a link to upload your resume + submit. It might be white
| labeled lever, but I'm not sure.
| forgotmysn wrote:
| I completely rule out a company if Taleo is part of the
| application process, tbh.
| vgeek wrote:
| You're not alone. I have never even had an interview from any
| company using Taleo, despite being qualified for the
| positions applied for. Their application flow sucks and is a
| joke. I figure I'm just blacklisted or something.
| conductr wrote:
| The thing many people don't realize is many companies post
| jobs just to say they did when they already know they're
| going to hire/promote from within. They usually know
| exactly the person they want to place in the role. Even
| just internally allowing things to be open for
| application/interview avoids a lot of issues where person A
| gets a promotion but that person B felt entitled to. Most
| of the jobs you see on many boards are not actively looking
| for candidates.
| jasonladuke0311 wrote:
| Me too. I won't even bother.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Or workday.
|
| Please just use easy apply from linkedin as an option.
| efitz wrote:
| This. LinkedIn is the de facto platform for work
| networking. I already maintain all my stuff there. Let me
| just easy apply, or let the company or me pay LinkedIn to
| provide my info when I apply. It's a lot easier for me to
| keep LinkedIn up to date and have them negotiate data
| schemas, then me having to fill out web forms and/or try to
| do "resume ingest optimization" on a doc and then share it
| around.
|
| Ed: autocorrect fix s/east/easy/g
| staticautomatic wrote:
| Making a "new" Workday account thing for each company using
| Workday is also the worst. Easy Apply and Greenhouse FTW.
| gtsop wrote:
| I onced decided to structure my cv as a json and write a js
| script to automatically fill in such forms. Wasn't perfect but
| surely saved me time.
|
| Why not standardise cv's in a json format and have companies
| accept them?
| valar_m wrote:
| I've heard this idea before and I like it, but my guess is that
| there's no realistic chance of something like that becoming
| standardized across companies. There would need to be some
| standard format established somewhere, which isn't impossible,
| but will inevitably lead here: https://m.xkcd.com/927/
| lozenge wrote:
| They want people to put effort in, however irrelevant the form
| of effort is to the job.
|
| Platforms with one click apply like LinkedIn flood companies
| with irrelevant CVs.
| mrfusion wrote:
| But you actually want the low effort folks because they
| already have good jobs and might be mildly curious about your
| place.
|
| If you make applying a lot of work then you're only getting
| the desperate.
| logicallee wrote:
| >Platforms with one click apply like LinkedIn flood companies
| with irrelevant CVs.
|
| Are you sure this happens on LinkedIn, or are you just
| guessing that this happens? The best recent interviews I've
| had were from LinkedIn, since I was able to target my search
| there with filters for specific jobs. Companies are also able
| to set their own filters. While clicking apply might have
| only been a click or two, the filters that brought the
| opening to my attention and qualifying questions acted as a
| match between companies and applicants. LinkedIn also has
| badges for assessments you can take right on the site.
| [deleted]
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| I thought about that as well. I imagine, that it could also be
| used as data to render a Pandoc template and have a nice
| looking document fall out at the end, if anyone wants one.
| Problem is, that I am too lazy to start creating one such
| template. But one day ...
| TameAntelope wrote:
| https://jsonresume.org/
|
| I played around with this a bit. Being able to apply themes
| seems like a cool concept!
| vxnul wrote:
| This is often an intentional design.
|
| A lot of HR people and bosses are evil and want to know not just
| where you worked and about how long, but what months you were
| there. Why? Because it's a way to figure out if you're disabled.
| A resume shows what the candidate wants them to know, but these
| portals are a way to ask the questions they want to know without
| revealing (as would occur in personal interactions) the degree to
| which they want to know.
|
| Also, to a large degree these horrible job portals are a way of
| filtering out the "prima donnas" who balk at being treated poorly
| or having to do something mindless and unpleasant.
|
| The hostile design is kinda the point, because it's capitalism
| after all.
| dailybagel wrote:
| Honest question: how would the months of employment at prior
| jobs indicate whether a candidate has a disability?
| vxnul wrote:
| Disabled people tend to get fired preemptively, regardless of
| performance, when their disability is discovered. It's
| illegal but it happens all over the place: bosses see
| everyone with a medical problem as a potentially unrealiable
| time bomb. So they tend to have a lot of involuntary "job
| hopping". And, not surprisingly, it takes them longer to find
| new jobs after getting fucked over.
|
| This can be concealed to some extent if people only put the
| years of employment on their resume. Which is why the resume
| portals ask for months. It's a way of figuring out if someone
| has a history of getting flagged for depression, anxiety, or
| long COVID and then PIP'd over it.
| woozalia wrote:
| A thing I wrote earlier seems relevant to this:
| https://wooz.dev/2022/01/15/standard_CV_data_format
|
| TLDR: why not have a standard microformat for CV data, so job-
| seekers can upload their data instead of having to manually enter
| it over and over again? (Also: CV-parsing software sucks and gets
| everything wrong.)
|
| I like your checkboxes idea too.
| otagekki wrote:
| Whenever I can, I apply using the easy-apply. That is because so
| I'm led to think uploading and typing my own resume on their
| hiring portal means a net waste of time since screening is most
| likely automated and while it took you 15 minutes to apply for a
| job, the automatic resume screening system will filter it out in
| 48 milliseconds. And then two or three weeks later you receive a
| letter saying you've been rejected (if they care to send a
| rejection email/letter at all).
| nicolas_ wrote:
| My biggest pet peeve with easy apply is that you can only apply
| with your default profile. I created my profile in French right
| after I graduated. When I moved to North America, I created a
| secondary one in English. Can you easy apply with that one?
| Nope. My only options are 1) not using easy apply 2) Remove
| everything on my default (French) profile and copy everything
| from the EN one to the FR one.
| mrfusion wrote:
| In 25 years I've never once gotten a response when filling out a
| web form for a job. As far as I'm concerned they're black holes.
| astura wrote:
| Strangely enough that's the only way I've ever gotten a job.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| I've reached out via these forms to Stripe once. I wanted a
| change from a senior role at a faang. Got nothing at all.
|
| The best part is a Stripe recruiter then contacted me over 6
| months later on linkedin, apparently unaware of my application
| and I had to decline since I just started a new role in the
| meantime.
|
| A suggestion to recruiters. Find where the inbox for these
| applications goes. Clearly no one's checking.
| dpifke wrote:
| Is this a structural issue with how recruiters are
| compensated?
|
| At many companies they have quotas or are paid bonuses based
| on how many candidates they source. I can imagine a policy
| whereby candidates that approach the company directly aren't
| counted as "sourced" by any particular recruiter.
| naravara wrote:
| Same. What I did start getting, though, was a whole lot more
| robocalls and spam emails that correlated strongly with my
| bursts of job application activity. I'm guessing Taleo and some
| of the other companies that provide these platforms must leak
| PII like a sieve.
| wayne-li2 wrote:
| I only have 3 years of experience but with three job hunts, the
| last one I just completed recently.
|
| My new grad job hunt, I received minimal responses cold
| applying online.
|
| My second job hunt was a one and done poach.
|
| The most recent one, I received a substantial percent of follow
| throughs. I cold applied to 6 well known SV companies and
| received a response from 5 of them.
|
| I don't have any other insight I just wanted to provide an
| additional data point.
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