Ask HN: Why isn't there any standard for machine readable CV's?
A lot of companies have their own form which need to be filled in by applicants. This makes the process quite cumbersome for potential new employees.
Why isn't there a standardized format for CV's? This could be anything from XML, JSON, YAML, CSV or some other text based format. This way the applicants don't have to fill in a news form every time and HR can just import the file into their system.
I've searched around a bit but there doesn't seem to be any solution similar to this.
19 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 54.1 ms ] threadI personally hate that template as it gives zero clues on the creativity of the candidate. On top of that, it's already kind of boring to screen 50+ CVs, let alone if they are all the same.
I personally think creativity plays a role on the candidate evaluation, because creating a document is a skill that is a must have in our field.
If the CV isn't structured, contains spelling mistakes (yes, really) or shows you have no clue on how to use a text-processing software, then it's already a negative point for said candidate (IMHO).
Having a machine readable CV would be interesting, but IMHO it should be somehow embedded in the CV itself, so that you can have both creativity and machine readability.
Also worth noting that companies like LinkedIn are already pretty good at parsing the data on your CV (or provide already a "machine readable CV", although not open).
[0]: https://europa.eu/europass/en/create-europass-cv
> [...] it gives zero clues on the creativity of the candidate.
I wasn't going to tailor my CV to your company anyway (and I haven't met a single human being in my field that does). At least this way you can be sure it is readable and contains relevant information.
> [...] creating a document is a skill that is a must have in our field.
Which should be done with latex, or at the very least another standardised markup language. Not anything which might remotely approach "creative" (i.e. indesign or photoshop).
> If the CV isn't structured, contains spelling mistakes (yes, really) or shows you have no clue on how to use a text-processing software, then it's already a negative point for said candidate (IMHO).
You are essentially pre-selecting for people that share your cultural background. That makes this (IMHO) a racist hiring policy. You should always look at why you feel certain indicators are good indicators. And what you might be missing out on by weighing them as you do.
I still defend that a single datapoint whose uncertainty is a real number is an inherently uncountable value and that “less data” was the appropriate phrasing.
If we're really nit-picking, we can say that the language is shaped by the people speaking it, and thus Google Trend could be a good starting point: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=Less%20data,Fewer...
It seems like "less data" is far more common. But again, we're nit-picking, and this is taking my initial post to the extreme limit. If he would have marked off an applicant for such a thing, he really shouldn't evaluate CVs in the first place, as he would be doing some kind of gatekeeping towards people with the exact same "ideals".
It's not like you have to type this kind of document ad hoc while being watched. Such a document usually is carefully crafted beforehand. There are tools for performing automated spell checks. Not using those has nothing to do with cultural background.
If I want to commit a few hours of my life working there, I find it valuable to do some legwork beforehand.
I don't think that creating a decent (not perfect!) document means that they match my cultural background and I honestly don't consider it racist, in any way.
I don't see any reason on why literally the only document that has a stake in saying whether you continue with some interviews or not should look bad or contain obvious mistakes. It's like if you were giving away business cards with your name spelled wrong, with a wrong phone number or with a yellow text on a red / orange background.
I've seen some CVs with rather obvious mistakes (e.g: mispelled technology names, Comic Sans MS, 180deg rotated profile picture, spelling mistakes in their native language, issues with dates and so on...).
I really think that if you care about applying for a job, the bare minimum you should do is to spend some time to re-read your CV (at least once) or ask your friends for suggestions.
I started doing it to ease scholarly citations, but my current CV does not use BibTex, it's all manually written out, I just like being able to quickly modify it and recompile rather than wrangle with Libreoffice or some other WYSIWYG editor.
I too have my CV made with LaTeX and using a modified template I've found.
https://github.com/denysvitali/cv/blob/master/main.pdf
The interesting part is that I can version my CV (actually, this one here is already pretty old), and run a CI job to build the document (which in this case I chose to version along with the repository - I know, bad choice).
Overall it's as you say, you can just edit a line (even with your phone) and you're good to go.
But thanks for being willing to share your design, I'd throw mine up but I lost the link to the (now heavily modified) template I used.
I was thinking that this might be something that a web3/Open source version of a standard would make sense
Who would maintain the standard? What are the fields that would be available?
In practice, the standard for machine readable CVs is a linkedin profile, and many ATS can import from there. I'm not very happy about it either, but that's the reality.