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iReformatFast. Flexible. Consistent.
iReformatFast. Flexible. Consistent.
recruitingsolutionsProblem
with Resumes?save timeand money
R E C R U I T E Z E . C O M
We proudly serve Recruiters and staffingagencies worldwide. Our products are builtfrom years of experience and through a desire to make recruiting easier.
iReformatFast. Flexible. Consistent.R E C R U I T E Z E . C O M# 2
I. What is Resume Formatting for Recruiters?
The sheer enormity of companies, job applicants, and recruiters has made
it impossible for a one-size fits-all model for formatting resumes.
The task of formatting too often falls on the recruiter,
who then wastes valuable professional time performing manual
typesetting duties instead of connecting employees and employers
Resume formatting is a process in which a recruiter takes a job seeker’s resume and converts it to a client-presentable
format. This formatting is far from the most glamorous part of a recruiter’s job, but it is a necessary evil because when
it comes to formatting, no two resumes are the same.
We’ve all heard of the old adage about trying to fit the square peg into the round hole, but when it comes to job seekers
and companies seeking to fill positions, it’s more like an infinite number of shaped pegs trying to fit into the same number
of holes.
when recruiters are connecting job applicants to clients, a disparate amount of time is often spent
customizing the resume’s format or content to meet the specific needs of the client. recruiters have to
spend valuable time, as much as 40 minutes per resume, which could otherwise be used for communicating
with clients and job applicants, or used for business development. while outsourcing the responsibility to
a part-time employee or freelancer is a possibility, it is a cost sink that most recruiters aren’t interested
in taking on, necessitating an alternative solution, one that is utterly reliable, accurate, and efficient.
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1. The trouble with originality
Job seekers use all manner of templates, systems, designs, and formats to make their resumes to their own specifications of appeal,
while companies use a host of different means to gather the information. Some larger corporations have their own Enterprise
Applicant Tracking System (EATS) that allows job seekers or recruiters to input data directly, while others have software that
attempts to “populate” empty fields by parsing a job seeker’s resume.
Most clients and recruiters are very selective and specific on how they want job seekers’ resumes and information presented. It
thus falls to the recruiter to format and present this information just so in order to make the owners of those resumes into viable
candidates.
This can be a painstaking process, as at any given time, recruiters might have multiple similar positions to fill, but each resume for
each job has to be formatted for presentation. Thus, if a recruiter truly believes a candidate is a good fit for five different open
positions, he or she may very well be formatting said candidate’s resume for five different positions.
A good recruiter is first and foremost a people person, with the innate ability to solve human resources questions and provide
solutions to companies with needs that can be as immediate as that same day or as variant as sending someone to another continent
at the drop of a hat.
While most recruiters clearly have good writing and editing skills, the task of formatting resumes is something you would expect a
“Girl Friday” or specific employee to take care of. However, even an extra staff member isn’t a guarantee of solving the bottleneck.
Some periods of time will have just a few resumes needing attention, others will have dozens upon dozens. The time involved remains
a huge drain. In addition, the US and global job markets remain tight, even seven years after the worldwide financial collapse of
2008. Recruiters are better off spending their time doing the actual recruiting than formatting. The recruiting business is one of
the most competitive, not only among recruiters themselves, but also between recruiters and staffing agencies. Thus, every little
advantage possible should be taken, including the speed of getting each resume to the hiring manager as soon as possible.
2. Manual labor in a digital world
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There are no shortage of job websites online these days, and many of the most successful ones allow job seekers to
store their resumes via the cloud for viewing, consumption, and download by potential recruiters or employers. The most
popular among these sites in the US at present are Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, Dice.com, and Indeed.com. Not only
are job seekers able to search open positions by keyword, location, industry, company name, etc., but they also can file
their own information for the purpose of quickly sending out a resume, cover letter, or both to prospective parties, and
update it when their work status or experience changes.
Recruiters get resumes from resume databases, online applications through career portals, job applications from job
postings on career job portals, as well as through referrals.
II. Where Does the Recruiter Find the Job Seeker’s Resume?
Between job markets, staffing agencies, emailed resumes, and online
classified ads, resumes come in all shapes and sizes from multiple
sources. Finding a cohesive, comprehensive way to deal with how to
quickly and efficiently source them from Point A to Point B is
paramount to a successful recruiter
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Resume formatting has no set pattern
or chain of steps to be followed.
Every resume is different and every
client’s needs are different,
with an entire pantheon of different
possibilities that must be addressed,
everything from simple spelling, grammar,
and punctuation, to the removal of
images and tables, the repurposing of
information to more visible locations,
removal of watermarks, headers, and
footers, and the creation of
executive summaries
The recruiter will use every resource available to find suitable candidates for the position.
The recruiter makes a list of candidates that he or she will send on to the client for actual in-person interviews. At this
point, the recruiter will ask the job applicant for the latest version of their resume. Before that resume can be sent
on to the client, however, it has to be formatted into the required style to suit the client’s desires and to protect the
recruiter’s interests.
Speed is often the difference in the recruiter who scores repeat business with a company or group of companies, and the
recruiter who is always lagging behind. When companies post job listings through recruiters, they are looking for top
talent, but they are also looking for speedy solutions. With the job market as tight as it has been for most of the past
decade, the ability to deliver applicants to clients is paramount in being a successful recruiter.
III. The Recruitment Process
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Microsoft Word-based resumes are the most commonly used formats and the easiest to edit. PDFs are usually not editable at all, and
have to be converted to Word or another word processor file type in order to make changes. This process is not always a clean one,
and unsightly extra characters and other errors can occur. Once these are cleaned up and corrected, they can be reverted to PDF
form, but again, the process is imperfect, and sometimes flaws occur in the new PDF as well.
1. Word vs. PDF vs. Online Resumes
Resume formatting is usually done using a word processor like Microsoft Word or one of its various similar competitors.
Other formats commonly used are online documents viewable as a web page, such as LinkedIn. Sites like these usually
offer the chance to download a person’s resume, but the result is not always the most visually appealing product.
IV. What is Involved In the Process of Resume Formatting?
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For recruiters, the first thing to do in resume formatting is remove all of the job seeker’s personal information. This is
done to ensure that a company cannot contact the applicant directly, as per the agreement between the company and the
recruiter. No recruiter wants a company to be able to contact the job seeker directly, this cuts out the recruiter from
the project altogether. In its place, a recruiter will put his own company information: company name, website, logo, etc.
It is a given that the recruiter must make sure that all the grammar, spelling, and punctuation are perfect on a resume.
But the work doesn’t stop there. Often, job applicants will organize their credential into a table, which might be visually
appealing, but usually has to be trimmed and it is difficult to edit. Other resumes have a multitude of images in them. These
must almost always be removed before the resume is sent on to the client.
After that comes the actual standardization of the resume is done, including applying company/client standard fonts,
bullet styles, highlighting skills, removing headers and footers, adding water marks, etc. formatting based on the
client’s request. Here is our guide to resume formatting: