Title: I understand why it exists - text is easier to query than reading a resume, but it&#x27;s a terrible and outdated design pattern that needs to go. But good news: there are better ways!<p>Some possible solutions and suggestions:<p>-Use a list of checkbox options for candidates to click skills&#x2F;requirements that you want for the role. If you need SQL, JS, Python, and you believe a CS degree is necessary, then let candidates click which ones they have. No more messing with text! Bonus: You could add some kind of percentage of skills match metric when reviewing applicants (you should still review resumes, however).<p>Bonus #2: You can autofill the job posting with a list of desired skills instead of needing to type them out - just select which ones you need when creating the posting.<p>-You don&#x27;t need user-entered text fields for keyword matching. Extracting text from PDFs and Word Docs is trivial. If your text extract fails or misses a min word count threshold, just trigger a secondary step for HR to review and manually copy the text and enter it. Point is, stop making users manually enter the text when applying, just pull it out yourself.<p>-If you insist on candidates typing out their resume, stop trying to extract text from resumes to autofill the application form. Personally, I&#x27;d prefer to just type it out rather than review it and fix all of the inevitable mistakes (or more likely, clear the fields and just enter it myself).<p>I have considerable experience hiring engineers, and I can tell you concretely that:<p>1. Strong candidates are hard to find.<p>2. A single bad hire can sink a team.<p>3. Technical interviewing is hard and far from solved.<p>Given these three things, why make it harder than it has to be by using a badly designed system when a few changes to the logistical process can fix so much?<p>And if the bosses balk, maybe sell it like this: the existence of your company depends on good hiring, so maybe assign an engineer or two to spend a few months building this out. Not to be all &quot;Dropbox is easy build&quot; - but the basic functionality for something like this is not terribly more complex than a CRUD app with file uploading. I know that&#x27;s oversimplifying, but I bet you get my point.
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