Harnessing the Power of Semantic Search

Harnessing the Power of Semantic Search Harnessing the Power of Semantic Search Harnessing the Power of Semantic Search Rosshiem Many have called semantic search the future of resume search technology.But what exactly is semantic search? Imagine search engines that dont get hung up on the particular words that you and your perfect candidates use to describe a given profession. Instead, semantic search interprets the meaning behind the words and concepts. If that simple concept still sounds murky, theres good news: to reap the benefits of semantic search, you dont need to know how it works. Heres a glimpse behind the curtain of semantic search that will help inform your use of it. The Power of More Accurate Search Basically, semantic search gets down to the meaning of words the terms of your query and the prose in the resume database to separate the wheat from the chaff much more effectively than conventional search. Maybe the most surprising aspect of semantic search is that it lets you describe who youre looking for, almost as if you were speaking with a networking contact who knew all the top candidates out there. Semantic search incorporates context toaddressa lot of language pitfalls in resumes. For example, Power Resume Search resolves misspellings, abbreviations (standard and otherwise) and synonyms and variations in terms.For example, SOX, Sarbanes-Oxley and Sarbox are all understood to refer to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Recruiters find that its more effective to search on specific, hard skills, like C# programming, than on soft skills like team player. Those all-important soft skills are best evaluated by hiring managers and HR professionals in personal interactions. Finds Candidates on their own Terms Semantic search is necessary precisely because human language is so full of variations. Ituses webs of related terms and their meanings to uncover resumes that use words closely related to your search terms. So, for example, when a recruiter or hiring manager runs a search on programmer, the results may also include jobs titled software engineer and developer, since they are potential synonyms. Skills and traits are then weighted in semantic search to produce optimal ranking of results. Power Resume Search gives more weight to a candidates experience thats more recent, for example. Even in the current buyers labor market, perfect candidates are often elusive. Thus Power Resume Search lets recruiters designate each desired skill as either required or nice to have. Using Technology to Meld Information To match your search query with the best candidates, semantic search combines advanced analytics with real-world knowledge of occupations in many industries.For each resume, the technology extracts concepts and tags sections. Theinformation in the resume is analyzed and summarized to produce a conceptual portrait of the candidate. subject-matter experts encode knowledge from many professional fields to find all the ways of referring to that concept, and determine where the concept fits in the semantic space of industries and occupations. Heres one such example: because advertising is a form of marketing communications, a resume with advertising copywriter in its Job Experience section can be presumed to belong to a candidate who has some marketing experience. Without the right technology, making all of this come together is exceptionally difficult and fraught with problems. For instance, parsing errors can cause some words to be misinterpreted because their context is misconstrued. If a CPAs resume states that she is marketing herself as a forensic accountant, the resume search engine should not classify her as a marketing professional. Sophisticated semantic search will analyze where in the resume marketing appears and interpret the word in that context. Will Semantic Search Reshape Recruiting? Who needs professional recruiters when semantic search is available? Most employers who have been using recruiters will find that these human experts will remain essential to the sourcing, recruiting and hiring cycles. Armed with semantic search in their tool belts, recruiters can focus on developing relationships with clients and candidatesand find the right candidate with greater efficiency.