A COMMON APPLICATION FORM FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS

The success of IT companies hinges on the ability to recruit talent. Which is why it is critical that companies focus on improving the recruitment process. This article focuses on one step in the recruitment process – screening CVs – and describes how it can be made more accurate and efficient. 

 

The Challenge Of Individualized CVs

 

The most popular mode of applying for a job is by typing out a CV in a format that appeals to the applicant (individualized), saving it as an MS Word or PDF or Text file and then emailing this CV to an employer. 60 – 90 percent of all applications a company receives are individualized CVs.

 

The problem with individualized CVs is that each CV presents information in different ways – some CVs start with contact information followed by education followed by employment history while others may miss out education information. Some CVs have information in chronological order while others may have it in reverse chronological order. Vital details might be missed out or may be incorrect – in our experience over 20% of all applicants either forget to mention their phone number or give a wrong phone number.

 

Further, screening individualized CVs is tedious and error prone. For instance, if a company’s selection criterion says, “should have a total of 2 years of experience on Java”, the CV screener has to add up time spent on each individual project in which Java was used and check if it adds up to 2 years. Moreover, since its a manual process and requires reading so much information screeners tend to make mistakes.

 

Since the CV screening process is time consuming, tech teams don’t do CV screening though it would be ideal if they did. It’s usually the recruitment team that does it. Since recruitment teams would not have a first hand feel of what is required it leads to wastage. For instance, a recruitment team sourcing Oracle DBAs might reject all SQL Server DBAs. Whereas the tech team may know that a few SQL Server DBAs are also required in the team since the project requires transitioning from SQL Server to Oracle databases. 

 

Finally, considering the number of CVs screened each month – approximately 200,000 software developer CVs screened in Bangalore alone – the process needs automation. But it is impossible to use automation to accurately parse individualized CVs owing to the fact that information is presented in so many different ways. Even the most “intelligent” parser is inaccurate.

 

Given these issues– multiple CV formats, incomplete information, tech teams not doing CV screening, automation unfriendly CVs – there is a need for a solution which will make the process of CV screening accurate and convenient.
 

The Software Developer Application Form

 

One solution is a web application form, which an applicant fills. The advantage here is that all CVs are in the same format making it easy to search and shortlist. The disadvantage is that it requires a candidate to fill out an application form each time he or she applies to a company. And filling out web forms is cumbersome. Companies who have offered applicants the option of filling out a web form or sending an email attachment have found that only 10– 20 % of applicants fill out web forms while others send email attachments. Even companies who say “web form or no way” have to make allowances for Placement consultants and Job sites since these sources cannot be easily integrated into web forms.
 
A simpler solution could be for IT companies to agree on a standard Software Developer Application Form, which is acceptable to all companies. Our own experience screening over 500,000 CVs for different software development companies has shown that all companies look for the same information on a CV. Across companies, employers are interested in experience years, technologies and projects worked on, current employer and education. Given this, it is possible to adopt a “Software Developer Application Form” that is acceptable to all companies – an Industry wide standard for software developer CVs. A sample Application Form with a some of the proposed 55 fields is shown in the table. This field list can be discussed and debated till a widely accepted standard is arrived at.

 

Table : Software Developer Application Form

 

:Source :Job Ad
:ApplyingFor:Java Developer
:Name:Ashish Ram
:Email:ashish@hotmail.com
:PassportNumber:T12040
:DateofBirth:2-Oct-73
:DayPhone(withSTDCode) :08026583827
:EveningPhone(withSTDCode) :08026584557
:City(Currentresidence) :Bangalore
:WillingtoRelocateto(CityNames) :Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai
:CurrentSalary(Annual) :3.5 Lakhs
:ExpectedSalary(Annual) :4.0 Lakhs
:Skills:Core Java, J2EE
:HighestQualification: Engineering
:HighestQualificationInstitution:REC Surat
:HighestQualification(%orCGPA) :65%
:TotalSoftwareDevelopmentExperience(months) :36
:Skill1Name:Java
:Skill1Expereince(months) :4

 

Some rules for the Application Form would be – do NOT change field names, field names are demarcated by separator like a “:”, Application Forms are submitted in plain text format (can be opened on any OS) and the Application Form name is always + + .

 

With a standard Application Form, the process of CV screening becomes accurate since CV screening becomes a “process” rather than an “art” – the rules are defined and easy to explain to anyone.  Further, it would possible to break up CV screening into two activities – the first part would be screening applicants on the basis of “hard” facts –age, educational background, willing to relocate etc which can be done by almost anyone. The second part would be to present the short-listed applicants’ information in a tabular format to Tech teams for them to choose candidates based on projects executed. This way, tech teams can participate in the CV screening process.

 

For applicants, the big benefit is “write once, apply several times”. A Job applicant would create a standard Application Form at the beginning of their career. As he or she goes along, they add or edit information on the Application Form. Each time they apply for a job, they open the standard Application Form, double check information, attach it and email it. And everyone - employers, placement companies and job sites - accepts the Application Form.

 

Finally, it is easy to write software to read the Application Form and upload the information into a database from where it is easy to search and retrieve information. And since all sources of CVs use the Application Form it is possible to put CVs from different sources into a single database – a big challenge currently.

 

Acceptance of such an Application Form has to be driven by the top IT services companies. These companies will have to agree on a standard Application Form and insist that everyone applying to them use it. With time the industry could move towards a “Only standard Application Forms accepted” model. To popularize the Application Form and to educate job applicants the Form could be made available on websites of employers, assessment companies, placement companies, HR portals, and emailed across to college campuses.

SMS for Recruitment

Using bulk SMS applications can dramatically improve the productivity of a recruitment team. Here is how ...

Email & Phone Calls

Recruitment teams usually spend a substantial amount of time making calls and sending emails. For instance ...

- Phone calls are made and emails are sent to invite candidates to attend a Test or Interview

- Phone calls are made to convey the results of a selection process to candidates.

- Emails are sent to stay in touch with offered-and-not-joined-yet candidates. In industry parlance this is called keeping "potential joinees warm"

It is possible to convey messages to candidates faster, cheaper and more reliably by using a bulk SMS application. These applications also support delivery receipts and return SMSes.

How SMS Can Help

A good bulk SMS application can convey messages to several candidates at once and receive delivery receipts. It can also recieve responses from candidates sent via SMS and register these responses. Here is how it works ...

- You are a recruiter who wants to schedule interviews for a 100 candidates

- You list out the names and mobile numbers of the 100 candidates in an Excel sheet.

- You then write down the time and venue address for each of the candidates. You also add a line saying "Please confirm your participation by replying "Yes".

- You upload the excel sheet onto a bulk SMS application

- The bulk SMS application SMSes the messages to the 100 applicants and shows you the delivery receipts for the SMSes that have been successfully sent

- Candidates who recieve the SMSes send back SMSes to confirm their participation. You run a report off the bulk SMS application and take stock of how many SMS confirmations you have got.

- For those for whom confirmations have not come up, you make phone calls.

Clearly the advantages in using a bulk SMS application are that in the span of an hour its possible to SMS upto a 1000 applicants and recieve delivery receipts. And in 2 -3 hours time its possible to to recieve about 600 to 700 confirmations. A recruiter can then choose to call the remaining 300 or so applicants and work to get confirmations. This substantially reduces the amount of time recruiters spend on the phone scheduling candidates. The other benefit is also that SMS has a better chance of reaching the job applicant compared to phone calls or emails. Since most people are in meetings during the day, they would not answer a phone call. Also, most people check their personal email ids once a day or once in two days. But they certainly check SMSes all the time. And on average, 80% to 90% of people with work experience own mobile phones.

Other Details

Several bulk SMS applications are available in the market. I have used the application from valuefirst (www.valuefirst.com). I prefer this application since it has a User Interface that is similar to Outlook and is extremely easy to use. Bulk SMS applications usually cost about Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000 depending on features. In addition to this there is an SMS cost which is usually Rs 1 for sending and Rs 2 for receiviing though these vary widely depending on the plan chosen.

The Future

One of the emerging areas where SMS will be used in Recruitment is in Ad response. Candidates today read a Job Ad in the newspaper (Times of India Ascent) note down the email address or URL where they have to apply, go to office and sometimes forget about it. Others remember but send their CVs 3 -4 days after they have seen the Job Ad. Response to Job Ads is rarely instantaneous but using SMS it can be made instantaneous.

Lets assume the Job Ad in the paper has a Job portal code ... for instance a Naukri code and a Monster code. All you have to do is send your CV identification number to the Naukri code or the Monster code and Naukri or Monster could forward your CV from their portal to the email id mentioned in the Job Ad. This can enable job applicants to apply as soon as they see the Job Ad which makes the recruitment process more efficient.