What once was the arduous task of reviewing every individual CV that crossed our desks individually by hand became a thing of the past when CV parsing software came about.
This kind of software massively reduced workload for many recruitment firms and as a result, CV parsing became the best thing since sliced bread. So why has CV parsing fallen out of favour with the recruitment community?
The problem with CV parsing
Although CV parsing software was revolutionary when it first came about, it's always had its limitations.
Even the latest and greatest parsing software programs still had their disadvantages. For example, some software was only able to search for keywords, only some had the ability to search for grammatical context; and all still relied heavily on the recruiter to constantly create the skill groups, disciplines and information that they're trying to capture.
Personally, my biggest gripe with any parsing solution was more the way it worked in practice: it would simply read the CV and tell me what job this person would be suitable for...But what if the candidate wants to do something different?
Read: How to spot a good CV from a bad CV in one minute!
Social recruiting, to the rescue!
Today's job seeker doesn't rely solely on a traditional CV when looking for a move, but is actively using social networking platforms in their job hunt too.
Any candidate who is actively or passively job seeking is more than likely to be using social networks to not only build a profile, a digital footprint of themselves and a digital CV, but also to scope you and your company out and glean as much information as they can.
As a corporate recruiter or recruiting agent these social networks allow you to quickly and easily gather the background information in a standard format for each potential candidate.
And as there are standard formats across the boards on these social networks, recruitment firms are finding they are saving a great deal of time and money by not having to sift through data files manually and categorizing skill sets.
What’s best is that the candidate is more likely to keep these profiles up to date, allowing you to benefit instantly for data intelligence.
Ultimately, social networks are affecting the recruitment process by making the work much easier for recruiters to find extraordinary talent as well as providing new means for candidates to get noticed in a highly competitive market. So it's farewell to CV parsing for the foreseeable!
