Resume Parsing 101: How to Discover If It Works for You in the Next 30 Minutes

It's really safe to say that the majority of HR experts, and other recruitment experts genuinely love their work. They are people's people and they use their skills to match the perfect candidates with the perfect positions. The basis of their job is creating win-win scenarios.

How great is that?

So, instead of keeping them buried underneath the piles and piles of resumes (OK, it's not really possible with digital resumes, but you get the point), it's in everyone's best interest to get a machine to sort that data for them, and let them actually talk to people and do what they do best.

AI resume parsing is the latest technology's answer to the echoing cry of HR specialists everywhere - Please, parse all these resumes and enter the data into our system for me!

What Is Resume Parsing?

Resume parsing is the process of taking applicant CVs, running them through a resume parsing tool, and extracting applicant data. This data will be labelled under the most useful categories for candidate screening, such as skills, experience, qualifications, time in roles, and past job titles.

Is Parsing Resumes Difficult?

Well, yes - if you do it manually, and no - if you do it the right way. No matter how much you love hiring people, parsing resume data manually is boring. Boring means - mistakes. Mistakes mean - compromised database. If you're human.

But, if you're a machine. No boring. No mistakes. A stellar database.

With the right parsing software, it takes just seconds to parse resumes and see all candidate information laid out in an easy-to-understand format.

You can also integrate a resume parsing tool with your applicant tracking system using an API to eliminate manual data entry and automatically populate candidate profiles. This is a simple procedure for your developer, and you can end up with a fully automated candidate screening process.

How Do You Use a Resume Parser?

First of all, you test it. You resume parser saves you time, money, and buys you brownie points from your HR department only if it works. But, really, really works.

The only way you know if it works is - yes! To test it.

Keen to find a suitable candidate without all of the hard work? Follow the three simple steps below to parse some resumes and find your ideal new hire.

Step 1: Head to Affinda’s Website

You simply need to find our Resume Parser in the Products tab.

Step 2: Upload CVs

Now, you will need to locate all of the resumes you’d like to parse. Make sure that you know where they are saved on your computer. Once you’ve done that, you can drag and drop them all on the grey box on the resume parsing page.

Alternatively, you can upload them manually by selecting ‘Choose Files’ and locating each CV on your computer.

Pro tip: AI learns from your CVs. So, the more you "feed" it, the better it becomes. If you really want to see if it works for you, start by uploading two batches of resumes. Let's say 20 resumes in each. Use one and see how it works, and then upload the next one for better results.

Step 3: CV Parsing

Once you’ve uploaded each resume, click the ‘Parse’ button. Wait for the process to complete, and you can then download the results as an excel file so that you can easily read the information.

Parsing Resumes with Affinda

Recruiters, human resources teams, and job boards all over the world have chosen Affinda for their resume parsing needs. This tool is easy to implement, understand, and use.

Affinda offers an API so that you can quickly and seamlessly integrate our resume parser with your applicant tracking system, streamlining your recruiting workflows.

All you need to do is ask candidates to upload a CV when applying for the position, and all the work is done in the background to gain relevant data from that. The great advantage of this is that you won’t need to ask candidates to enter information that’s already in their CV, resulting in better candidate relationship management.

We may be biased, but as far as we can tell you’d find it impossible to locate a resume parser that is both cheaper and more accurate than Affinda’s.

Don’t take our word for it: with the free online tool mentioned in this guide, you can try the Affinda resume parser risk-free.

Pro tip 2: An accurate resume parser makes the perfect Christmas gift for your HR department. Just sayin'