Automatically generating bespoke CVs ?

[Boo]

Hi,

I am ooc atm and was thinking that I could both save a few of the precious minutes and hours of my remaining time here and at the same time learn some new skills by writing a program to generate bespoke CVs based upon keywords in the job specs.

My idea is to write a whole bunch of document snippets that describe and relate to specific skills and technologies and store them in a database. Then parse the jobspec for keywords and create a word document based upon the result.

My problem is that I am an embedded software engineer not a pukka Windows weenie so don't really even know what skills and technologies are applicable for this. Am I right in thinking WordBasic macros could do the job ? How about choosing a database for the snippets ? Or would a database be overkill and there's an easier way ? Can the automation facilities in Word 2003 be utilised to generate documents from passed in .txt or .rtf files ?

I don't have any spare money atm so compilers must be free and the version of Word I have is 2003 though I would be happy to use Open or Libre Office instead.

I'm grateful for any ideas or technological suggestions,

Boo

 

[SimonMac]

Why would you risk a potential contract to save 15 mins a time rewriting a CV?

I have three CV's, one for each of my distinct disciplines, its not that hard to tweak it based on the job spec before sending it away each time.

 

[cojak]

But it's an interesting project if you're ooc and it's a good way to learn new skills.

 

[eek]

Why would you risk a potential contract to save 15 mins a time rewriting a CV?

I have three CV's, one for each of my distinct disciplines, its not that hard to tweak it based on the job spec before sending it away each time.

+1. You run multiple CVs and edit the one most appropriate for the job in hand to emphasis whatever criteria they are using.... Then fire it off. It ain't difficult...

 

[Boo]

Why would you risk a potential contract to save 15 mins a time rewriting a CV?

+1. You run multiple CVs and edit the one most appropriate for the job in hand to emphasis whatever criteria they are using.... Then fire it off. It ain't difficult...

Because I have 20+ years experience and apply for 20+ jobs a day ? My current (very well pruned) CV runs to 8 sides which largely do not repeat (due to the pruning) and I am fairly sure that people are binning it because of its size.

That's the reason, I don't want to argue about it and have no intention of producing 3 or 4 or so semi-specialized CVs so please keep other posts on topic (don't mean to appear ungracious here but I also don't want to start a general CV thread either, I hope you understand).

Thanks for the replies,

Boo

 

[eek]

Because I have 20+ years experience and apply for 20+ jobs a day ? My current (very well pruned) CV runs to 8 sides which largely do not repeat (due to the pruning) and I am fairly sure that people are binning it because of its size.

That's the reason, I don't want to argue about it and have no intention of producing 3 or 4 or so semi-specialized CVs so please keep other posts on topic (don't mean to appear ungracious here but I also don't want to start a general CV thread either, I hope you understand).

Thanks for the replies,

Boo

And that technique seems to be working sooooo well....

The thing is that I don't have different CVs they are the same CV with items moved up and down within each contract / company as appropriate. You can't just emphasis a key word here and there you need to ensure the entire paragraph and company reflects the skills you wish to emphasis.

 

[doodab]

The thing is that I don't have different CVs they are the same CV with items moved up and down within each contract / company as appropriate. You can't just emphasis a key word here and there you need to ensure the entire paragraph and company reflects the skills you wish to emphasis.

+1. If I' going for something that has specifically requested Java, Oracle or SQL Server knowledge or expertise in one of the facets of my niche product I rewrite the blurb for any relevant roles to emphasize what I did with that technology. It seems to work.

Perhaps having your database contain several different versions of each role would be the way forwards?

You should be OK to use word for this sort of thing IMO although for the database you might want to look at MS SQL express edition, it's free and you should be able to hit it from VBA via ODBC.

 

[xoggoth]

I just used to send a picture of me in my old gardening trousers and the contract was a dead cert.

 

[Bacchus]

I think it's unlikely that such a venture would require a database unless you want to learn how to use that database

I once produced an application for generating school-reports for a teacher friend of mine in Excel - all she did was create a list of names with grades against them for effort in class/effort for homework/exam grade in one sheet and the application selected various phrases from another sheet, replaced placeholders with the pupil's name, and formatted a document with all the reports one per page for printing

Saved her (may actually still save her) hours and hours of writing essentially the same old thing for a couple of hundred pupils every year...

 

[d000hg]

Because I have 20+ years experience and apply for 20+ jobs a day ? My current (very well pruned) CV runs to 8 sides which largely do not repeat (due to the pruning) and I am fairly sure that people are binning it because of its size.

That's the reason, I don't want to argue about it and have no intention of producing 3 or 4 or so semi-specialized CVs so please keep other posts on topic (don't mean to appear ungracious here but I also don't want to start a general CV thread either, I hope you understand).

Thanks for the replies,

Boo

So you want us to spend our time telling you how to do something we think is a silly idea, without mentioning the elephant in the room that you're applying for 20+ jobs a day and consider 8 pages of CV to be "well pruned"?

Just to clarify.