A resume-scanning system is a computerized tool used by some human resources departments and agencies to manage the floods of resumes. Resume-scanning software does the following:
- It creates an electronic image of the resume.
- It uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to turn the image into an electronic
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The electronic image file that a resume scanner makes is similar to a photograph produced by a camera. Once the photo is taken, the shapes and positions of the people or things in the picture cannot be changed. Likewise, in an electronic image of your resume the words on your document cannot be manipulated. Not until the OCR software converts it to a text file can the words on your resume be extracted and transformed into other forms such as the employer’s database file.
Here’s how it works on the employer’s end: When your resume arrives in the mail, it won’t be read by human eyes. Instead, it’ll be placed face-down in a scanner (which looks sort of like a photocopier). The scanner creates an electronic image of your document (sort of the way a camera snaps a picture of a person). The OCR software then goes through the image file to recognize characters and convert the file into a text document.
From there, the text of the document is stored in a database system. (In sophisticated systems, the snapshot of the original resume is also stored in the database so that the hiring manager can view that as well.) Once in the database, the information from your resume is accessible to hiring managers who use search words (keywords) to select qualified job candidates.
Wait a minute, what happened to the humans in the human resources departments? Have computers taken over and made people obsolete? No, there are still people working in those departments, just not as many as before the introduction of resume scanning and electronic resume databases. But don’t worry, no matter how automated the resume-review process becomes, human beings (hiring managers) will always conduct the interviews and make the hiring decisions.
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Scanning is the process of turning a hard-copy document into an electronic image. Optical Character Recognition software (OCR) is the computer’s tool for converting an electronic image into electronic text, which can then be searched for keywords and manipulated into new formats such as database files.
