Interview Tips >What Are Semantic Job Matching Engines?
Employers have a limited amount of time to find good candidates. Unfortunately, the job market is dense, and as soon as a job is posted, the employer is bombarded with hundreds and thousands of resumes and cover letters that they need to review in order to find the right candidates.
Hiring managers need to make their jobs easier. So they are looking at new technologies that help limit the candidate pool for them, rather than force them to look at every resume by hand. One such method is using what is known as “Semantic Job Matching Engines”
Introduction to Semantic Search
Semantic search is like “Keyword Search 2.0.” When you search for something on Google, like “Awesome Interview Tips,” you are going to come up with a lot of websites that have that exact phrase. You are not guaranteed, however, to come up with websites that have any relevance to what you are looking for. All you know is that they have the phrase. They may not have the information.
Why?
Because to a keyword search engine, keywords are nothing more than a series of words. They have no meaning to the search engine. If I searched for “Kickass Interview Tips,” I would probably get a different website, even though the meaning of the words are the same, because the search engine doesn’t know that “Kickass” and “Awesome” and “Everyday Interview Tips” are synonymous (wink).
Searching By Meaning
Semantic search is the next step. When you use a semantic search engine, the search engine brings up results that are tailored to what you are looking for based on the meaning of your search, rather than the exact phrase. This, ideally, gives you much more accurate results.
What This Means to the Job Seeker
Job seekers are slowly becoming more and more affected by semantic job search engines. These search engines use their algorithms to search your resume for words that imply the meaning behind the search. So if the hiring manager wants something with leadership experience, the algorithm will search resumes to find words that either directly mean or imply that the individual has that experience. Then it brings up those applicants directly to the hiring manager, giving them far fewer resumes to view.
In the next post, we will look at what steps you need to take to improve the likelihood of showing up in a semantic job search engine.
Take Away Tips
- Resumes are changing.
- You absolutely must spend time creating your resume.
Related posts: