RESUME DATABASE MANAGEMENT

One of the major pain areas of the recruitment fraternity has been organizing and managing resumes in such a manner as to enable sharing of candidate information, efficiency of use and high searchability. The concept of resume database management has gained currency among recruiters to address this challenge.

Traditional Ways Of Resume Management
Prior to the widespread use of recruitment automation software, recruiters had come up with certain traditional ways of organizing and maintaining resumes that they sourced from multiple sources. The most significant aspect of all such methods was the high degree of manual work involved with its associated inefficiencies such as inaccuracies, wastage of time etc.

Some of these methods included:

• Using Microsoft Excel worksheets for tracking candidate information
• Managing resumes within an email application such as Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express.
• Maintaining a central shared Windows folder on a machine having a folder hierarchy based on candidate skillsets, functional areas, experience levels etc

As mentioned earlier, recruiters soon realized the inherent inadequacies of these methods which included:

• Highly time-consuming because of manual data entry and maintenance of the candidate data.
• Prone to mistakes and inaccuracies
• Effective resume searches not possible
• No security controls, prone to overwriting, data loss
• No real collaboration or teamwork possible

Automating Resume Management
As a result of the issues resulting from traditional ways of resume management, there was a crying need in the recruitment industry for a way of managing candidate information which was:

• Involved minimal manual work or data entry
• Highly searchable and easy to use
• Totally secure with proper access control and data backup facilities
• Shared among a team and promoted high degree of collaboration

Keeping the above broad requirements in mind many software vendors made the concept of resume database management one of the key features of their staffing automation solutions. Today almost all such products have features such as:

• Central resume repository
• Automatic parsing and storage of resumes from all popular candidate sources such as Job Boards, email etc.
• Portal style resume search facilities
• Tools for easy segregation of resumes into functional areas/folders.

In conclusion it is clear that resume management as a function of recruitment has come to occupy a increased importance in the whole process of recruitment. AS result the recruitment automation software segment has risen fully to the challenge by providing powerful and easy-to-use solutions for fully addressing this need.