Constructing a Parseable Job Order
Constructing a Parseable Job Order
Last Revised: April 13, 2021
Job Orders (job descriptions, job postings, etc.) are much more difficult to parse than resumes. Here is why:
- Resumes have generally accepted content categories; job orders do not
- Resumes contain information about one thing: the candidate; job orders contain:
- information about the job
- information about the ideal candidate
- information about the company
- information about corporate culture
- information about benefits
- information about background checking and testing
- Resumes mostly contain hard skills and specific tasks; most job orders contain mostly soft/cultural fit concepts that rarely match resume data, and when they do, are not believable. For instance, a job order that says "creative thinker" may match some candidates who have that term on their resume, but does anyone really believe the candidate's self-assessment? Isn't putting "creative thinker" on your resume the antithesis of thinking creatively?
- Job orders typically contain multiple job titles other than the open position job title. There may be titles for "works with [title]", "reports to [title]", etc., and these can be difficult for the parser to ignore.
So, in order to parse job orders most effectively:
- Omit:
- information about the company
- information about corporate culture
- information about benefits
- information about background checking and testing
- Try to use hard skills rather than soft skills, and write skills in Proper Case unless that is clearly wrong
- Write job titles in Proper Case, not lower case or Mixed case
- Keep job titles generic. Do not use abbreviations.
Job Title: Sales Manager Area of responsibility: Consumer Products Division: Eastern Region
is far better than
Director, Eastern Region Consumer Products
The point is keep the titles shorter and more generic and not to mix the type of position with the specific company "slot" for that position.
If you use company specific titles like
Cast memberwhen a cast member really means a person that serves food in a theme park, that's a poor choice for a title. Why? Because you will probably only find (a) people that already work for you, or (b) people who are in theatre or had a role in a school play, or (c) no one because the job order parser did not understand that a Cast member was a job title. So just sayJob Title: Food Serverand later in the body of the description you can sayFood servers are valuable cast members.... - Omit company names within the job description
Try to write important criteria as bullet points, not narratives. For instance,
looking for an experienced tool and die machinist familiar with CNC techniquesis far less parseable thanJob Title: Machinist Requires: CNC, Tool and Die
Where possible, write in this style (variations shown):
Position Title: Sales Manager Skills: Requires XXXX (4 or more years) Must have YYYY 4+ years of GGGG FFFF required KKKK highly desired JJJJ preferred Fluent in German Some knowledge of Greek
If the job is supposed to be in a specific location, write that location like this:
City: San Francisco State: CA Zipcode: 45678
Do not writeLocation: Semi valleyFor years of experience, write:
Requires 10+ years of experience
If you are a risk taker, you might write an experience cap also:
Requires 10 to 20 years of experience
For educational level write just the minimum level of degree:
Bachelor's degree
For management experience, write
Requires at least 10 years of management experience