[Sigia-l] Entering CVs online

[David Crow]

The presentation Weston mentions is available online from EDUCASE at: 
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/EDU0326.pps

We've been moving towards HR-XML resume format for storage (structured data, it has some advantages when we move from the custom system to a Tier 1 ERP). It is an incredibly flexible method for storage. 

But I keep fighting should I make all of my users enter their resume data in these descrete chunks. It is a lot of work for users to change their resumes into a chunks that fit my storage model. Our informal user feedback and usability tests show that our users don't want to enter fields and fields of data (this might be related to our user group). The overhead required to enter your resume in a structured format might eliminate a set of potential hires (applicants with cognitive disabilities; applicants who really haven't decided to leave their current jobs). 

Currently, we allow users to submit their CVs as text, rich text, word, pdf, etc. This is stored as a clob in the database. Non-structured data. It's horrible (but they print nicely).

I've been looking at using products to parse the resume into HR-XML format including: 
 * http://www.resumeparser.com/
 * http://www.resumemirror.com/products/resume-processing.html
 * http://www.greenhire.com/GHParser.html

Each of these products would allow our users to upload their resume in a file, and we can then create the nice HR-XML structure without the user having to know. We then add the file to the resume using the <SupportingMaterials> tags. It significantly reduces the effort and improves the customer experience.

<Resume>
  <NonXMLResume>
   <SupportingMaterials>
     <AttachmentReference mimeType="application/pdf">submitted_document.pdf</AttachmentReference>
   </SupportingMaterials>
  </NonXMLResume>
</Resume>

These products are expensive, but I am more inclusive in the user base that I would be able to serve. And I would get the benefits and flexibility of a structure data format.







    Message: 5
    Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 14:24:59 -0500
    From: "Thompson, Weston" <weston.thompson at claremontmckenna.edu>
    Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Entering CVs online
    To: <sigia-l at asis.org>
    Message-ID: <20050202193140.D890F292EC5 at mail.asis.org>
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

    [Forwarded because of format problems. Dick Hill]

    At EDUCAUSE 2003 I saw a presentation by some folks from the
    University of
    British Columbia.  They had built a faculty CV system that
    incorporated data
    controlled by the university (came straight from the ERP system) and
    data
    that they import from external CV sources, such as they "common CV" that
    Canadian granting agencies use.  UBC teamed with those agencies to
    develop
    web services to support the process.
    I was interested because we have a system that lets faculty build
    "profiles"
    (selected CV information) using a simple web interface.  See info
    about our
    system here:
    http://ist.claremontmckenna.edu/webteam/projects/facprofile/
    The screen shots are old but the system is largely the same now.  Some
    faculty have really gone to town with this and others are more
    hands-off  -
    but it's an easy interface for web staff or faculty support staff to
    use as
    well, so we can do the edits for the hands-off folks quickly.
    Weston Thompson
    Associate Director
    Information Systems and Technology
    Claremont McKenna College
    500 E. 9th Street
    Claremont, CA 91711
    Phone: 909-607-9245
    weston.thompson at claremontmckenna.edu
    http://ist.claremontmckenna.edu/webteam
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