Being a part of a consulting firm, staffing agency, vocational school, or recruitment agency, you can very well understand the pain associated with formatting resumes manually. It might, however, ease you a bit to know that the latest technology-enabled resume formatting service can alleviate your pain to a great extent.
Bringing fully automated resume formatting services on board and integrating them with the existing ATS has a proven track record of formatting a resume in less than 10 seconds.
The only thing which consumes time is defining or customizing the template as per the company’s needs. Once the template is set and activated, resumes are formatted within the blink of an eye. The best resume formatting services are available online, office apps, and iOS apps.
Without further ado, in this article, we will go over:
- What is a resume formatting service?
- Advantages of using resume formatting services.
- Does your business need resume formatting services?
- Time taken to format a resume.
- Features of an online resume formatting service.
- Best resume formatting services in 2022.
What Is Resume Formatting Service?
To put it simply, resume formatting is just customizing the candidate’s resume into a client-presentable format or as per your company requirements. Resumes are standardized based on your company or client requirements.
The HR department usually needs all the candidate resumes in a particular format. All this is adhered to either manually or using software that confirms that each resume is compliant as per the required format.
This should not be mistaken as a design issue as it is just a process by which the resume information is displayed uniformly.
Are You Still Formatting the Resumes Manually?
As per a survey conducted by the Eremedia group, it was concluded that it might take around 15-35 minutes for a recruiter to format a resume. On average, a recruiter submits at least four resumes per day. Sometimes, resumes are sent as is to the client because the recruiters don’t have time to format them. This often leads to a rejection of the candidate.
By having a look at some hiring statistics based on the survey, you will be able to understand the recruitment funnel better:
- Around 1000 candidates see a job post as soon as the job is posted to an online job portal.
- Out of 1000, only 200 will begin the application process.
- 100 candidates will complete their application process, and the rest will leave the process midway.
- ATS screens 75 resumes out of 100, leaving behind only 25 eligible resumes.
- The hiring manager will see those 25 resumes, and only four to six candidates will be called for an interview.
- One to three candidates will clear the initial rounds to be called for the final interview round.
- One candidate is chosen. Unfortunately, around 20% of those offered a position do not accept.
- These numbers are quite surprising but true!
A hiring manager wants a professional-looking, cleanly formatted resume. After all, a lot depends on the first impression. The software available today easily integrates with the internal staffing agency software and helps streamline the submissions.
Advantages of Resume Formatting Services
The main advantage of a resume formatting service is that a lot of time and energy is saved. Have a look at some of the other important tasks which can be done in the time saved to improve the bottom line of the organization:
- Increase in the number of clients.
- Writing more detailed job descriptions.
- Spending more quality time with candidates.
- Getting faster submissions.
Here’s what this actually means:
1. Increase in Number of Clients
With the additional time in hand, the recruiter can present the company to new clients in their spare time. Account Managers can strongly make a difference by offering and providing more personal care and attention to the clients. Recruitment is a relationship business; the more account managers/recruiters can interact with the clients and hiring managers, the better the business. With increased interaction, they can better understand the job requirements, team requirements, company culture, and more details, which can significantly help submit suitable candidates for the job, increasing the chances of a placement. When you place a great candidate, they become the ambassadors of the staffing company. The hiring managers and clients reach out for more of them, which leads to increased revenue and profitability.
2. Detailed Job Descriptions
The recruiter can now spend more time talking to the hiring manager and the project manager to get the desired job descriptions, skills, qualities, and other team-building traits that are very useful in sourcing the best candidate for the job opening. Here is an in-depth article on writing great job descriptions.
3. More Quality Time with Candidates
Having spare time means the recruiter can spend more quality time understanding the candidates’ expectations, experience, and capabilities. This way, the recruiter can explain the job requirements better and build a good relationship with the candidates. Especially in this current market, it takes more convincing the candidates to take up your client’s offer. With a very low unemployment rate, it is hard to get qualified people for the available jobs. Therefore, recruiters spend more time providing personal care and attention to the candidates. As a result, there is a better chance of closing a deal.
4. Faster Submission
All the resumes are processed in a “first come, first serve” manner. The earlier the resume is submitted by the candidate, the better the chances are of getting called for an interview.
Does Your Business Need Resume Formatting?
Resume formatting is a process of converting a resume into a predefined format that meets the industry standards and is acceptable to clients as well.
Below mentioned are a few reasons why resume formatting is mandatory for staffing agencies, consulting firms, organizations, and other recruiting agencies:
- To remove the candidate’s contact information.
- For better time utilization.
- To encourage blind hiring strategy.
- For Employer Branding.
Let’s explain each one of them in greater detail.
1. To Remove the Candidate’s Contact Information
Many agencies may want to remove a candidate’s contact information from resumes if they don’t want their client to contact the candidate directly. Removing candidate contact details is one of the basic features of an automated resume formatting tool. Even though it is a simple process removing information, it is more about putting the candidate’s name in all the right places. For some templates, the candidate name is in the header, footer, cover page, and sometimes it is in various formats in all the different places. When multiple people are doing this in an organization, there is a good chance everyone is not following the standards.
2. Better Time Utilization
Hiring managers and recruiters have very little time to go through resumes. So, there is every possibility that important information will get skipped or overlooked.
Reading different types of resumes may confuse the recruiter and also increase the reading time per resume. If the information is well sorted and formatted, the recruiter can directly jump to the section of interest, which may include the candidate’s experience, accomplishments, education, etc.
Even fr