How to store / organise CV's in a useful manner
August 7, 2017 9:39 AM Subscribe
I have about 120 CV's on file which will grow.
What is a good way to organise them? I am using excel at the moment and it's clumsy.
I tried to find CV organizer software and all I find is recruiter stuff which I am uninterested in.
I am not recruiting, I just have a large amount of potententially useful CV's for when needed.
I was thinking maybe to use Access but that gave rise to its own problems mainly me I think.
Any suggestions as how to do this?
What sort of "when needed" are you looking for? Are you looking to organize/search the data within, or metadata, or something else?
I'd think something like evernote or dropbox or google drive, that supports document upload and tagging and folders and searching within documents, might work well for your purposes even if it's not CV-specific.
posted by R a c h e l at 9:46 AM on August 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'd think something like evernote or dropbox or google drive, that supports document upload and tagging and folders and searching within documents, might work well for your purposes even if it's not CV-specific.
posted by R a c h e l at 9:46 AM on August 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I think I need to give more information.
I manage several similar projects each of which employs a group of people with similar skill sets.
There are about 10 different positions common to all the projects each requiring it's own bunch of skill sets.
Some applicants in waiting have different qualifications or speciality niches within their skill sets.
I need to be able to select and compare in an easily visual manner if needs be.
Itemization in excel starts to get cumbersome.
posted by adamvasco at 10:12 AM on August 7, 2017
I manage several similar projects each of which employs a group of people with similar skill sets.
There are about 10 different positions common to all the projects each requiring it's own bunch of skill sets.
Some applicants in waiting have different qualifications or speciality niches within their skill sets.
I need to be able to select and compare in an easily visual manner if needs be.
Itemization in excel starts to get cumbersome.
posted by adamvasco at 10:12 AM on August 7, 2017
I do this and just use nested folders in a shared folder on a server or Dropbox. Each resume is scanned or merged with cover letters, emails, etc. as a single PDF. The key is putting an ISO date at the front of the file name (2017-08-07) and using fairly consistent naming in the file name with first and last name of the applicant. This allows multiple copies to be found and deleted as they get old and go stale.
There are drawbacks - if someone has multiple skills we make copies of the resume and put it in multiple folders. But the simplicity outweighs the inefficiencies as it takes less than 60 seconds to train employees on how o search for or save files to the folders.
This scales pretty well for up to about 300-400 resumes. Anything more than that I think a lightweight database is in your future.
posted by sol at 12:37 PM on August 7, 2017
There are drawbacks - if someone has multiple skills we make copies of the resume and put it in multiple folders. But the simplicity outweighs the inefficiencies as it takes less than 60 seconds to train employees on how o search for or save files to the folders.
This scales pretty well for up to about 300-400 resumes. Anything more than that I think a lightweight database is in your future.
posted by sol at 12:37 PM on August 7, 2017
Short answer: I know exactly what you're looking for, and it doesn't exist.
Longer: I have used Google Spreadsheets for this - load each resume into g'docs, get a share-with-anyone link, and attach that to the name in the cell in the spreadsheet. That allows for other data (phone, email, area of expertise, etc.) without having to call up the resume just to get a contact number.
It does mean the resumes are viewable by anyone who has the link. Most people will only be viewing them through the spreadsheet links. If that's a security risk, you can skip the "get shared link" part and just link them so that only you and those you specifically share with can see them.
If you have several jobs, you can put each on a tab and use that, or else make separate spreadsheets if you need to keep them viewable by different people.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:06 PM on August 7, 2017
Longer: I have used Google Spreadsheets for this - load each resume into g'docs, get a share-with-anyone link, and attach that to the name in the cell in the spreadsheet. That allows for other data (phone, email, area of expertise, etc.) without having to call up the resume just to get a contact number.
It does mean the resumes are viewable by anyone who has the link. Most people will only be viewing them through the spreadsheet links. If that's a security risk, you can skip the "get shared link" part and just link them so that only you and those you specifically share with can see them.
If you have several jobs, you can put each on a tab and use that, or else make separate spreadsheets if you need to keep them viewable by different people.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:06 PM on August 7, 2017
In a consulting enviornment, where we had to assemble proposals that emphasized people's pertinent expertise, every employee had a directory in which all resumes resided. There was a common nomenclature system, like what sol recommends, and then the employee's name and whatever made the resume specific, again using a loose hierarchy, e.g.,
2017.8.4.Doe.Mary.Transportation.Highways as distinct from
2017.8.4.Doe.Mary.Tranportation.Ferry Systems or
2017.8.6.Doe.Mary.Project Management or
2017.8.5.Doe.Mary.Project Management.Transportation.Ferry Systems.
This system worked well because a collaborating firm could quickly tell us what resumes they had for each person and we could know if they had the most current/appropriate one pretty easily. Sometimes we had subdirectories in person's folder. We would copy the resume file over to the proposal directory so that it was easy to include a specific resume when someone wanted to use whichever version appeared in a previous submission. For awhile we made a spreadsheet with all of them listed, but no one maintained it so it did more harm than good, since it offered false reassurances of comprehensiveness. This system covered about 100 employees with about 25 resumes each.
posted by carmicha at 2:11 PM on August 7, 2017
2017.8.4.Doe.Mary.Transportation.Highways as distinct from
2017.8.4.Doe.Mary.Tranportation.Ferry Systems or
2017.8.6.Doe.Mary.Project Management or
2017.8.5.Doe.Mary.Project Management.Transportation.Ferry Systems.
This system worked well because a collaborating firm could quickly tell us what resumes they had for each person and we could know if they had the most current/appropriate one pretty easily. Sometimes we had subdirectories in person's folder. We would copy the resume file over to the proposal directory so that it was easy to include a specific resume when someone wanted to use whichever version appeared in a previous submission. For awhile we made a spreadsheet with all of them listed, but no one maintained it so it did more harm than good, since it offered false reassurances of comprehensiveness. This system covered about 100 employees with about 25 resumes each.
posted by carmicha at 2:11 PM on August 7, 2017
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posted by Sophont at 9:46 AM on August 7, 2017