Ask HN: Why isn't there any standard for machine readable CV's? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why isn't there any standard for machine readable CV's?

13 pointsvollebregt19 comments

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.

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The EU has a standard format (although not really machine readable) that is called EuroPass [0].

I 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

You say it is not machine-readable, but it comes with an XML representation of the PDF embedded in the PDF (so that you can re-upload it later to edit it). I'd say that is plenty readable.

> [...] 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 tailor all my resumes to the companies I want to work at. Each have different role descriptions and things they value.

If I want to commit a few hours of my life working there, I find it valuable to do some legwork beforehand.

> You are essentially pre-selecting for people that share your cultural background.

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.

> You are essentially pre-selecting for people that share your cultural background.

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.

What kind of culture has poor spelling as some kind of central tenet?

Americans, if you're from a British background, and Brits, if you're from an American background.

Other than in a tongue-in-cheek manner or by the occasional inveterate prescriptivist, neither variation is considered poor spelling.

I was once angrily told off by a professor from the other side of the ocean for referring to “less data” instead of “fewer data”. He absolutely would have marked off an applicant for making that comment on their resume.

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.

This is just worse than being a grammar nazi IMHO. It's not even about being correct - both representations are OK.

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".

Indubitably

If you want creative but readable, offer to let them do their CV in LaTeX.

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.

Thanks for this, I might steal it, but it's a little heavy on the whitespace for my tastes. Also are you European? I'm probably not gonna put my face on my CV :-)

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've seen https://jsonresume.org/ posted here before, so its being attempted at least.

For my most recent move, I didn't even submit a CV, resume, or cover letter. My (very sparse) LinkedIn profile was enough to get a callback and interview. I'm no huge fan of LinkedIn, but I like the idea that a digital portfolio of some sort can replace antiquated methods of documenting skills and experience. I'd love to see the day when folks are landing jobs based primarily on their commit histories.

No doubt there are several, none of which anyone of consequence cares about.

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.

I had this exact idea after watching my girlfriend struggle with a bunch of different applications that take 30 minutes each and ask for the same information.

I was thinking that this might be something that a web3/Open source version of a standard would make sense

Because there is not a business incentive for there to be one and businesses are the dominant party in the exchange.

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