Are you disappointed with the keyword-based application tracking systems (ATS)? Here is what you can do.

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  • Do not use graphics or tables
  • Follow the formatting rules
  • Include unique keywords

Sound familiar? These are some of the tips which can help resumes get through an application tracking system (ATS) and eventually land them in front of an HR manager. However, when it comes to new AI technology used in the hiring process, these tips can no longer guarantee the resume getting past the ATS.

 

What is an ATS and how does it work?

Over 98% of fortune 500 companies, as well as an increasing number of small to mid-sized businesses, are using application tracking systems to filter resumes. [1] The ATS screens through a large number of resumes and passes the most qualified candidates on to the hiring managers. The principal at HR consulting firm Bersin by Deloitte says, “Most companies have thousands of resumes sitting in a database that they have never looked at.” Actually, 75 % of resumes get lost somewhere in the database and are never looked at by a human. [2]

When applicants apply for online jobs, their personal information, work experiences, skills, education and other relevant information is uploaded to the database. The ATS assists human resource personnel in managing the candidates throughout the whole hiring process, including sending applicants automated messages to let them know their applications have been received, giving online tests, scheduling interviews and sending rejection letters. [3]

 The drawbacks of ATS

The biggest drawback of ATS is that many of the earlier systems are designed to look for specific keywords and titles in resumes that match with the advertised positions. Even though some ATS providers claim their system has AI capabilities, the search and match results are still very disappointing. This means that if a good candidate, who is switching careers, has a very similar skill set to the one required for the new position but doesn’t have the exact job title in their resume, the system would miss the candidate.

Sometimes recruiters search for candidates by combining multiple keywords, such as job titles, important skill sets and experiences. Even so, a keyword-based system is not capable of finding adequate candidates with an acceptable degree of accuracy and precision. Moreover, the majority of all searches look for terms that are common, such as “Java”, “Project Manager” or “MS Excel”. Unfortunately, this is not the right approach, for with keyword searching, the more trivial the keyword, the less effective the search and the broader the results.

Other drawbacks of an ATS are that it may not understand all abbreviations and that it can only read a certain format.  According to a joint survey by CareerArc and Future Workplace, in 62% of companies using ATS, “some qualified candidates are likely being automatically filtered out of the vetting process by mistake.” [3]

 The new technology to upgrade your current ATS

It would be pointless to discuss how to optimize resumes in order to “beat” the ATS. Instead, companies should implement the newest AI technology to optimize their application tracking system for a more efficient and accurate hiring process. JANZZ.technology offers the semantic technology which structures occupations, skills, experiences, functions and many more logically interlinked concepts, which deliver relevant search and match results to hiring managers.

With a semantic ATS, you will never miss talents simply because of wording. For example, when searching for a Chinese coach (e.g. for executive mangers who are going to China regularly to meet clients), a semantically powered system will show results including applicants whose job titles aren’t identical but related, such as, Chinese language tutor, Chinese instructor, Chinese teacher or language tutor specialized in Chinese and Japanese.

A semantic matching engine like JANZZsme! has the most comprehensive, multilingual knowledge graph of occupations and skills at its disposal. When the semantic matching engine does a query expansion, searches or matches job ads and resumes, it accesses the ontology concepts, lexical terms and synonyms, which may appear in CVs and job vacancies in up to 40 languages.

For instance, CEOs (US English) will match with Geschäftsführer (German), 首席执行官 (Chinese) and Managing Directors (UK English). Carpenters will be fully or partly matched with joiners and kitchen unit makers. Design illustrators, animation artists and film animation designers are all fully or partly connected.

Taking programing language as another example; let’s say you are looking for programmers to develop .NET. If programmer A has C# on his resume and programmer B knows Python, the smart matching engine JANZZsme! will successfully match programmer A to your open position, because it knows that C# is a programming language of .NET. This is achieved through the interlinked relationship of the concepts stored in JANZZon!.

Precision in matching is achieved through structure and context. However, neither CVs nor job offers are structured efficiently or consistently, which makes it difficult for a keyword search engine to identify the right data type.  A matching engine such as JANZZsme! looks at the type of sought-for data and uses deep learning techniques to identify the correct match while disqualifying matches that are the wrong data type.

CV and job description keyword-based search systems and current CV Parsing technology do not have the same capability to produce high occurrences of accurate matches that contextualized semantic searching and matching has. While the results from a keyword-based search overwhelm hiring managers, a semantic matching engine produces a manageable volume of results, letting hiring managers focus on scanning questionable or unclear data and making the final decision. Thus, radically reducing the amount of needed time and effort.

Do you feel limited by your current ATS (e.g. Oracle Taleo, SAP or IBM Kenexa)? Do you want to optimize it with semantic technology and enjoy more advanced capabilities when searching for candidates, matching open positions and conducting skill gap analyses? To find out how to do so, please write now to sales@janzz.technology

 

 

 

[1] Jon Shields. 2017. Over 98% of fortune 500 companies use application tracking systems (ATS). URL: https://www.jobscan.co/blog/fortune-500-use-applicant-tracking-systems/

[2] Terena Bell. 2017. The secrets to beating an applicant tracking system (ATS). URL: https://www.cio.com/article/2398753/careers-staffing-5-insider-secrets-for-beating-applicant-tracking-systems.html

[3] Alison Doyle. 2019. How employers use application tracking systems (ATS). URL: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-an-applicant-tracking-systems-ats-2061926

[4] CareerArc. 2016. 23 surprising stats on candidate experience-infographic. URL: http://www.careerarc.com/blog/2016/06/candidate-experience-study-infographic/

OECD Going Digital Summit 2019

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Stefan Winzenried, CEO and founder of JANZZ.technology is honored to take part in the OECD Going Digital Summit in Paris. Together with high-level policy makers and key stakeholders, the summit will bring in-depth knowledge, exchange views and share practices in the digital transformation for growth and well-being. Agenda of the two-day summit includes strategies for digital transformation, job in the digital age, education and skills for the digital age, realizing the potential of new digital technologies and more.

The world’s most homogeneous society is opening new doors

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Japanese society, one of the world’s oldest and most homogeneous, is about to change. In December 2018, Japan’s parliament passed an immigration bill that is intended to boost the economy and to tackle the country’s labor shortage.

More precisely, the law is designed to attract foreign “semiskilled workers.” These workers are to be employed in various industries, among others, construction, the hotel industry, agriculture and nursing care; in the latter case, shortages are most acute. Despite some protests from oppositional parties, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his government put the bill through by a vote of 161 to 76. Over the course of five years the immigration bill, which is coming into effect in April 2019, aims to attract 345,000 foreign workers to Japan. [1]

Japanese cities worried about taking in more foreign workers

A survey conducted by Kyodo News in February this year shows that Japanese cities are concerned about the accommodation of more foreign workers. The issues cities seem to worry most about are of economic nature and include questions of how new foreign workers can be provided with livelihood support and with salaries on a par with local Japanese workers’. [2]

Both the oppositional protest and the concerns appear to be justified. In 1993, Japan has already once introduced a program concerned with foreign labor, the so-called Technical Intern Training Program. Its purpose was to attract interns from developing countries and to help them acquire technical skills which they could export to their countries of origin. Despite the good intentions behind it, the program has been abused. Many Japanese companies have misused it as a cheap way of employing foreign laborers. This translates to a majority of Japan’s young foreigners doing low-payed “3K jobs” (the three Ks are short for kitsui, kitanai and kiken, the words to describe work that is “dangerous, dirty and difficult”). Many of them receive less than half of the statutory minimum wage, which has a significant impact on the quality of their life and well-being. [3]

According to the Nikkei Asian Review, Japan wants to complement the new program with a range of measures to support foreign workers in adjusting to Japanese life and to encourage smaller cities to take in foreign laborers. Furthermore, foreign workers’ language proficiency will newly be tested with a focus on spoken Japanese.  “People may have various arguments, but if Japan simply continued along the same path, we would find ourselves in a very difficult situation,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga says. [4]

Aging problem is forcing Europe to relax immigration regulation

The 2018 Aging Report, published by the European Commission, indicates that Europe’s population is continuing to age rapidly, with Germany having one of the oldest populations among European countries. The German population pyramid indicates a negative demographic growth and predicts the country’s arrival at a scary milestone this year: there will be fewer citizens under the age of 30 than such over 60.

To fight these current developments, Germany has taken action. In August and September 2015, the country opened its borders to welcome more than a million refugees. Last year’s employment figures show that since then 400,000 refugees have been integrated in work or training, which seems to vindicate Angela Merkel’s much-criticized approach. “After one year of instruction, most young migrants can speak German well enough to participate in vocational school classes,” the head of BDA (Confederation of German Employers’ Associations), Ingo Kramer, states. [5]

The aging problem also poses challenges for nursing care. Accordingly, many European countries, including Germany, Switzerland, the UK and Finland, are in great shortage of nurses and other professional care providers. To reduce their lack of skilled labor, these countries are introducing relevant policies.

In December 2018, the German government passed a skilled labor immigration law that will make it easier for employers to recruit workforce from outside the EU. In light of Brexit, the UK government is proposing a drastic overhaul of its immigration policy in order to henceforth prioritize high-skilled workers and treat non-EU citizens equally to EU citizens.

A war for skilled migrants

Evidence shows that immigration has played an important role in bringing significant economic benefits, including to the US and Canada. The two countries had the most welcoming immigration policies to attract skilled laborers that aid national businesses in becoming more agile, competitive and profitable in the “war for talent.” Their governments in exchange received more revenue and citizens profited from the momentum created by the influx of high-skilled migrants. [6]

More recently, other countries, too, have expressed their intent to attract skilled foreign workers, which increases the complexity of the skilled migration boom. The most important decision criteria for skilled workers’ choice of country are language and culture. The English-speaking countries of the US, the UK, Canada and Australia are the so-called “Big Four” of skilled migration and take 70% of all high-skilled migrants to OECD states. [7] Countries like Germany and Japan are therefore facing serious competition, even if they increase their policy efforts.

Negative aspects of migration

There are, however, also some negative aspects about large-scale migration. Although concerning a relatively small group of people, these negative consequences will have drastic effects. In essence, (im)migration can create unequal power balances. In John Stuart Mill’s words, it is big governments’ responsibility to ensure that the local and short-term social costs do not overshadow the role of (im)migration “as one of the primary sources of progress.” [6]

Another drawback of migration are the economic losses caused by the “brain drain” in the nations that high-skilled workers leave behind for countries offering higher salaries and better living standards. Most of these left-behind countries are less developed—the departure of their best-trained workers only perpetuates this: not only are they deprived of their high-skilled professionals, thereby they also lose the money invested in these people’s education.

On average, nurses earn 250 to 400 euros a month in Bosnia or Serbia. Compare this to a starting salary of about 1,500 euros in Germany. “We are losing our best experts,” says Zoran Savic, the president of Serbia’s medical workers’ trade union. “Younger doctors will fill in their places, but it takes a minimum of ten years to educate a specialist physician.” [8]

According to data supplied by POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration), between 2012 and 2016 more than 92,277 nurses have left the Philippines. Low salaries have been one of the main push factors. [9] In the Philippines, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program (BSN) takes four years to complete and costs about 30,000 pesos (576 USD) per semester. If only one third of the deployed nurses mentioned held a public BSN, the country has already lost 140,320,097 dollars that it invested in their education.

Similarly, a Kenyan study shows that in Kenya a doctor’s higher-level education costs are approximately 48,169 dollars. If one adds the preceding costs of primary (10,963 USD) and secondary education (6,868 USD), the total education cost for one single medical doctor amounts to 65,997 dollars. [10] For a country whose economy classifies as lower-middle-income the brain drain caused by the departure of expert workers such as doctors constitutes a major problem.

Migration, the only way to tackle labor shortage  

According to the World Bank, developed countries could generate global economic gains of 356 billion dollars if they increased immigration by a margin of 3% of the workforce. Some economists predict that if borders were opened completely and labor forces could be allocated freely the world economy would produce gains of even 39 trillion dollars over the course of 25 years. [6]

Oxford University professor Ian Goldin indicates that ensuring a strong labor supply augment with foreign workers will become even more crucial in the future. Therefore, today’s governments need to prepare themselves for the labor market challenges laying ahead of them and they can do so by choosing the right tools and technologies to shape the future.

JANZZ.technology offers exactly what is needed to achieve this. With proven high-tech solutions such as the newly developed Realtime Labour Market Dashboard, its unique expertise in occupation and skills data and extensive know-how about the re-skilling and digitization of employment markets, JANZZ.technology provides an array of effective tools. These tools can be used to analyze and correctly predict both the potential and the demand for specific skills in labor markets, as well as provide policymakers and people in charge with the answers to make the right decisions at the right time.

Please write now to sales@janzz.technology

 

 

 

[1] Simon Denyer and Akiko Kashiwagi. 2018. Japan passes controversial new immigration bill to attract foreign workers. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japan-passes-controversial-new-immigration-bill-to-attract-foreign-workers/2018/12/07/a76d8420-f9f3-11e8-863a-8972120646e0_story.html?utm_term=.1f730552bd5d [2019.02.26]

[2] KYODO. 2019. Japanese cities worried about taking in more foreign workers, survey finds. URL: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/02/10/national/japanese-cities-worried-taking-foreign-workers-survey-finds/#.XGKdelxKiUk [2019.02.26]

[3] Christoph Neidhart. 2019. Zuwanderer verzweifelt gesucht. URL: https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/ausland/asien-und-ozeanien/zuwanderer-verzweifelt-gesucht/story/19372917 [2019.02.26]

[4] Hiona Shiraiwa. 2018. Japan prepares support for incoming foreign workers. URL: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-Immigration/Japan-prepares-support-for-incoming-foreign-workers [2019.02.26]

[5] Jorg Luyken. 2018. Angela Merkel was right about refugee integration, says German business federation chief. URL: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/14/angela-merkel-right-integration-figures-show-400000-refugees/ [2019.02.26]

[6] Ian Goldin. 2016. How immigration has changed the world for the better. URL: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/how-immigration-has-changed-the-world-for-the-better/[2019.02.26]

[7] INTHEBLACK. 2016. Which countries are winning the global talent war? URL: https://www.intheblack.com/articles/2016/12/01/which-countries-are-winning-the-global-talent-war[2019.02.26]

[8] Daria Sito-Sucic. 2017. Nurses, doctors leave Balkans to work in Germany. URL: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-balkans-healthcare-germany/nurses-doctors-leave-balkans-to-work-in-germany-idUSKBN16G18X [2019.02.26]

[9] Don Kevin Hapal. 2017. Why our nurses are leaving. URL: https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/180918-why-nurses-leave-philippines [2019.02.26]

[10] Yusuf Abdu Misau, Nabilla Al-Sadat and Adamu Bakari Gerei. 2010. Brain-drain and health care delivery in developing countries. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46179307_Brain-drain_and_health_care_delivery_in_developing_countries [2019.02.26]