If you are planning to integrate a resume reader into your ATS, you have two viable choices. You can white-label an existing solution or build one from scratch.

The former enables you to focus on other aspects of your applicant tracking system and frees up additional resources. The latter allows you to build a custom solution that matches your individual ATS at the cost of spending more time to get your product to market.

Is the additional investment worth it or are you better off with a reputable, high-performing white-label solution?

Here’s your answer:

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When Does ATS Resume Reader Integration Make Sense?

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Integrating resume readers into Applicant Tracking Systems has become the industry standard. Still, is this integration something you should include in your offer?

Nine times out of ten, the answer is yes. However, it depends on your target market. For example, if you’re developing a low-cost ATS for small businesses, it may not make sense to include this feature.

Why is this the case? It would increase the price of your product. That makes it a bad product-market fit for a small business because low applicant volume.

However, there are several types of clients that would certainly benefit from integrating a CV extraction tool into their ATS:

• Job Boards: One of the main goals of job boards is to get as many applicants for companies as possible.Integrating a resume scanners can do just that. It saves applicants from having to constantly re-enter information each time they want to apply for a job.
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• Professional Recruiters: Recruiters are constantly juggling multiple open roles which makes them key candidates for ATS resume readers. Instead of having to spend hours reading resumes, professional recruiters can let a resume reader do the heavy lifting. At the same time, they can focus on higher-value tasks.
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•  Internal HR Departments: Like recruiters, internal HR departments are often juggling multiple job openings at the same time. By leveraging an ATS resume reader, they can spend more time onboarding new hires rather than sifting through mountains of resumes.

If any of the above clients fall within your target market, then it’s definitely worth integrating it into your applicant tracking system. Now the choice becomes whether to white-label or develop your own resume reader.

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Developing Your Own ATS CV Reader

Creating your own ATS resume reader is a monumental task that requires significant resources – ie. time and money.

It’s true that you can create a solution that fits your organisation’s goals and ATS. However, the time spent developing a high-quality resume reader may not be worth it, especially since it doesn't guarantee the quality. Not to mention the fact that you need significant developer resources to ship a competitive resume reader.

What about open-source resume readers? While there are certainly plenty to choose from (you’ll find many on platforms like GitHub), they simply don’t offer the required performance straight out of the box. Sure, you’ll have a functioning resume reader, but the accuracy and efficiency will likely underperform existing solutions.

The main reason for this is that applicants are often creative when designing and formatting their resumes. This leads to countless styles and formats that an open-source tool will struggle to parse.

Consequently, you’d still have to spend years refining your ATS resume reader. Some of the development aspects you’d have to consider include:

• ‍Architectural Decisions: You need to craft an architecture and technology stack that is functional, scalable, and meets client demands. Additionally, you’ll have to consider all the different types of customers that would use your resume reader. Especially since they’ll likely have different goals and specific demands.
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•  IaaS Provider Selection: You’ll need to consider whether your IaaS provider is sufficient to handle the volume of this feature. This is incredibly important if you aim to target high-volume job boards.
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• Security: Resumes often contain sensitive applicant data, so it’s your job to keep it safe. That means you’ll need the necessary resources to offer enterprise-grade encryption.
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• Ecosystem Support: While you’ll still need a support system for your ATS, adding a resume reader is one more thing for your company to deal with. Considering the complex nature of resume parsing, it may be better to let a specialised company handle this task.
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•  User-Centric Design: Like with any software, you’ll need to centre the feature’s design around your users. This means conducting additional user research to ensure intuitive navigation and seamless interactions.
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•  Continuous Improvement: Your job doesn’t end once you’ve built your resume reader either. You’ll need ongoing resources to gather data, fix bugs, and optimise the performance of your feature.

As you can see, adding a seemingly simple feature to your ATS is much more difficult than it looks.

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Why White-Labelling an ATS Resume Parser Could Be a Smarter Choice

With a white-labelled ATS resume reader, you can skip the headaches of additional developer recruitment. That alone can shave months and months off your go-to-market timeline.

Integrating an external solution can help you focus on other core areas of your applicant tracking system. After all, a resume reader is just one (albeit vital) part of your product. This can help you further stand out with your offering from your direct competitors. 

Understandably, you may think that a white-label solution won’t fully meet your needs but this problem is easily solved. Simply choose a solution thatother companies successfully tried and tested. Additionally, you shouldintegrate a resume reader from a company that offers customisation and a tailored solution.

However, one of the biggest benefits of using a reputable white-label solution is the fact that your chosen company specialises in this particular field.

White labelling enables you to leverage high-performing solutions that are constantly updated to include the latest innovations in ATS resume reading. This strategic alignment can even function as an additional competitive edge to help you build a high-quality product.

In saying that, there is one drawback that you must consider – the fact that you’re relying on an external partner for a vital part of your product.

Similarly to your concern about finding a solution that fully meets your needs. You can solve this problem by choosing the right solution provider that fully aligns with your business goals. You need a provider that can support your company's growth.

Get Ahead of Your Competition with Affinda

Gaining an edge over your competition demands innovation, efficiency, and precision.

Here's where Affinda steps into the spotlight. Our white-label resume reader employs cutting-edge technology to provide you with the best-performing solution on the market.

At the heart of our resume reader is an industry-leading AI. It integrates deep learning, computer vision and Natural Language Processing (NLP). With our unique implementation, we constantly come out ahead in blind tests against other resume reading systems. We owe it to our solution’s ability to extract100s of fields from every resume with incredible accuracy.

Some of the vital resume fields our customers extract each day include:

●    Personal Details: Names, contact details, phone numbers, email addresses, and even website links.

●    Work Experience: Employers, job titles, locations, and chronological employment history.

●    Education: Institutions, degrees earned, degree types, and the year of graduation.

●    Certifications: Courses, diplomas,certificates, and even security clearances.

●    Skills: A comprehensive list of skills, categorised within a best-in-class database of over 3,000 soft and hard skills.

●    Candidate Summary and Objective: A snapshot of a candidate's aspirations and a summary of their professional narrative.

●    Language Proficiency: Insights into an applicant’s language fluency.

●    Referees and Publications: A window into a candidate's professional endorsements and contributions to thefield.

Ready to get the jump on your competition and get to market sooner? Try Affinda’s Resume Reader today with a free trial.