How Digital Resumes Work

Resumes, as we all know it's a summary of our work experience and skills we hold that gets us a job right? Before turning in that resume to the place you so dearly want to work for, you should probably find out how certain "words" will get your resume looked at. 

Companies today are using what is called digital resumes to help save them time and money in the hiring process. And in doing so it can either hurt them, or help them find qualified candidates at a much faster rate. 

Here's why.

During my class session we had talked about this topic that resumes can be separated into ranking from least qualified to most qualified. Therefore, it is true. 

On my search for truth here's Kevin Lochner, an executive from Kenexa, a hiring software company who's client are Wal-Mart, General Electric, and Starbucks all together receive over a million candidates a month and all those digital resumes goes into a database. Once it's in a database they can quickly pull it and filter it, grade it, or rank it by how well it matches a job so recruiters only spend time looking at the best fits. Discussed in detail here.

The advantages to this are like stated above, there are millions of candidates each month and digital resumes saves them time along with money. Employers use keywords to search for qualified candidates and in doing so it is a much faster process. This benefits both the employer and the applicant. If the applicant were to have the keywords the employer are looking for then that will increase his/her chances of getting an interview for the job. 

Disadvantages in the usage of digital resumes only can also hurt both sides in this process. For employers using this keyword scanning may cause the employer to lose out on a valued candidate(s) for the position and benefits the person may bring to the company. On the other hand, as said on smallbusiness.chron.com, it states that applicants can lose the chance of being considered because of outdated keywords on their resumes. Link here. So for applicants, they'll need to update their resumes from time to time when they are hunting for jobs. 

Is it fair treatment? Yes and No. Here's what Eric Lochner has to say. He claims it is fair. Applicants has got to approach each opportunity and scenario differently as it varies by the hiring company. "They've got to customize or tailor their approach for every opportunity they want to go after." There's some truth to that, but physical judgement from a certain standpoint makes better calls in hiring the right person for the job.

Just something I found interesting while researching on this topic. 

Happy job hunting. Update those keywords!