Employment agents don't understand my skills so I created a way to bypass them

by InstajobMick • 12 years ago

3 3 12 years ago

Hi folks. OP here.

Truth is, I just got pissed off with the current system here in the UK (I am sure it isn't dissimilar elsewhere) so I thought I would do something about it.

I was sick of explaining to recruitment agents that I am NOT a DBA (I have SQL programming experience), that THERE IS a difference between PL-SQL and NOSQL (yes, I had that conversation recently) and that when I applied for a job I spent the vast majority of my time chasing a recruitment agent that would never return my calls or had so many CVs and resumes to look through that my chances were almost nil.

It gets worse: One guy I spoke to (who has no programming experience) says he routinely gets recruitment agents contacting him for .NET programming jobs because he has a .net domain name in his CV!!!

Here is how it works:

1. Candidates enter their skills that are currently hidden in their CVs and resumes. 2. Employers enter skills that they need to hire and they get real time feedback on how many candidates have those skills. They fine tune as necessary to get the short-list down to a manageable number. 3. Employers then contact the candidates directly.

I figured that the most important thing at the first stage of job hunting is skills... as a candidate, they are a very important asset and an employer can very quickly build a short-list of potential candidates if they have access to these skills in a standardized manner.

Also, a few friends of mine have hiring responsibility in their jobs and one of them was hiring a Java dev last year and contacted 3 recruitment agencies looking for 3 CVs from each: Only 1 replied with 2 CVs, neither were suitable. He then advertised the job himself and got 1500 applicants... How is anyone supposed to shine when the employer has 1500 applicants?

I have come up with a way to let a computer short-list candidates for employers based on skills... it's simple and doesn't require a non-skilled recruitment agent to take up to a third of the candidates salary for the privilege of looking through a bunch of CVs.

Anyway, I would love to hear what you think about it.

Thanks

Mick

phantom_oracle• 12 years ago

You've basically just redeveloped the software recruiters themselves use.

Keyword refining is one of the techniques they use to trim down thousands of applications into a handful.

I'm still glad that you are trying to bypass them. Keep it up.

InstajobMick2• 12 years ago

Almost. The difference is that they use software to match skills from CVs and resumes which isn't all that accurate. My project asks you to do it yourself: Who knows your skills better than you? I added my own skills and it took around 1 minute. :)

Employment agents don't understand my skills so I created a way to bypass them

Related Stories