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Ask HN: Best resume format for auto-fill online job apps?

by JHof on 8/12/16, 5:28 PM with 33 comments

• by BinaryIdiot on 8/12/16, 6:49 PM

  I would skip the entire step of sending in a resume that has to auto fill that type of information (if possible; not sure what industry you're in).

  Almost every single time I've submitted a resume through whatever process a company has to do so (which almost always includes one of these systems) I RARELY hear back in any decent amount of time (if at all; the amount of technology companies that have never sent any type of response to me at all is absolutely staggering).

  However, if you can find the recruiter's email address, the email address for the head of a group you want to work for or even a hiring post (like HN's Who's Hiring) where they give you a direct email address to send to, those are almost ALWAYS the best.

  I'll never forget applying to one company a while back where I submitted through their online process then, later that day, saw their email address in the Who's Hiring on HN and directly emailed them. I went through two interviews as a result of my direct email then almost a month later got a call from whoever received my first application. The crazy thing is that one was FAST and actually responded to me; most are super slow or never respond to me.

• by vtange on 8/12/16, 6:32 PM

  Don't spend too much time worrying about this. There's a reason why companies use ATS and that's to filter out a large volume of applicants.

  Even if you formatted well, you'll need to have enough keywords, etc. to win against the crowd.

  Your time is better spent working on networking. My current job came from a friend's referral and honestly, I'm sure many companies will take a referred candidate over a candidate whose resume got the green-light from a machine.

• by runlevel1 on 8/12/16, 6:37 PM

  If I were building a tool that parses resumes, my tests would probably begin with resumes based on the default Microsoft Word templates.

  I usually layout my resume in something like InDesign and render it as a PDF. Anecdotally, those parsers perform terribly on them.

  For instance, a couple years ago Jobvite had a problem parsing tables in PDFs rendered with Adobe Quartz PDF print driver. They wouldn't allow you continue until the parser succeeded.

  Their recommendation was that I rewrite my resume in Word.

• by libria on 8/12/16, 6:57 PM

  We really need someone to convince all these ATS's to use a standardized format (i.e., hResume). I would think Linkedin would have both the clout and interest in pushing their one of their own design.

• by akeating on 8/12/16, 6:06 PM

  If I read this correctly, you're interested in formatting your resume in a way that (hopefully) gets the right data into the right place in the target systems. Many of the systems you reference use third-party software such as http://www.sovren.com/ that attempt to fill the void. You will end up optimizing your resume to fit certain categories. Implicit in all this is that the end user may only utilize a subset of all the possible categories of resume information. You might consider playing around with the Sovren api, or use a fairly well known format, such as the LinkedIn profile pdf.

• by kowdermeister on 8/12/16, 9:53 PM

  I wouldn't send anything but PDF. The only way that it will look the same you intended to.

  Parsers are based on millions of CV-s as inputs and they are looking for patterns. I'd guess that layout is much more important than format.

• by JustSomeNobody on 8/12/16, 8:19 PM

  Food for thought:

  If your resume is treated this way, how will you be?

• by midnitewarrior on 8/12/16, 6:44 PM

  I've read that .doc/.docx/Microsoft Word format is the most desired. I've had recruiters tell me this, and I've seen posts on reddit about this. It all comes down to metadata and formatting -- the automated resume parsers do a lot better with Microsoft Word, especially if you use the templates.

• by vthallam on 8/12/16, 6:09 PM

  Its tough to prepare a universal format for all ATS to parse and if there is one, they would have been promoting that format all along.

  Some ATS keep first name, last name, email as the only mandatory fields and in that case a basic resume where you keep the name as the first thing on top would work. But most of the others ask for your visa status, ethnicity and various other things, so that has to be manual work again.

  As far as i know most of the resumes made in simple LaTeX have had more chances of getting parsed.

  PS : ATS refers to Applicant tracking systems which many companies use to post jobs and track applicants and manage the hiring process.

• by pknerd on 8/12/16, 7:37 PM

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• by gtk40 on 8/12/16, 8:34 PM

  I've found ones that pull from LinkedIn do best, but I treat that as more of a comprehensive CV that I would cut down to be a resume for a particular job.