Are you using SharePoint as your CV or resume database?

Why would a professional services firm use SharePoint as their CV or resume database? 

Spoiler alert! This blog post explains why using CV Partner SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) in combination with SharePoint is the ideal solution.

There are 3 ways of managing CV Resumes which this blog post will discuss

1. Using SharePoint as a shared drive
2. Building a custom SharePoint site
3. Using CV Partner with backups to SharePoint

Using SharePoint in its simplest form

Having your company’s CVs or resumes stored as Word, ppt or pdf files in a SharePoint CV or resume databases can help you stay organized and to access relevant documents and information when needed. However, using SharePoint also has some pitfalls, such as the content being locked in the format it was created in, limited search, filter and reporting options as well as lots of additional manual work when tailoring and formatting for bids and proposals. Also, most consultants, engineers or lawyers find the user interface cumbersome and the process less user friendly and more time consuming than using fit for purpose tools that have been designed for the task of updating and editing CV or resume data. You can read more about in this blog post which discusses SharePoint cv “file bases” vs “structured cv databases”.

A more advanced SharePoint setup

Instead of using SharePoint as a cloud storage for your CV Resumes as files, you can build and configure a custom SharePoint site with dedicated fields where each employee can upload their data in their CV Resume. This requires customization but allows you to get more structured data. Instead of storing files, you can configure SharePoint with custom fields to capture data in a xml, CSV or Excel format.

SharePoint can further be customized through the use of themes, templates, web parts, and apps. Themes allow you to change the look and feel of the site while templates allow you to structure the content layout and design. Web parts are components that can be added to pages to display content such as text, images, or files. Apps are add-ons that allow you to extend the functionality of SharePoint.

You also have the possibility of creating searches or filters. However, generating Word, PDF or PowerPoint CV resumes from this setup is not straight-forward and require custom software development beyond what can be done with themes and apps within the SharePoint ecosystem.

Benefits of structured data: using CV Partner SaaS instead of SharePoint

‍
Using CV Partner SaaS that is designed around the process of keeping CVs, resumes ,and case studies updated and containg structured data can provide more features and capabilities than SharePoint or Google Docs in terms of data storage, extraction, searching and manipulation. CV Partner offer greater scalability and flexibility and allow you to customize the structure of your data according to your own needs and requirements without having to worry about compatibility, design, formatting, brand guidelines or other technical issues. CV Partner is a "off the shelf" solution that you can get started with today. It can also help you manage multiple versions of the CV which can come in handy when submitting for different bids or proposals.

The CV Partner CV database also allows you to easily share, reuse and edit content in a CV or resume as well as getting full overview of your colleagues skills and experiences. Furthermore, CV Partner provide more robust security measures and data protection, which is especially important for sensitive or confidential data, such as CVs, resumes, skills, educations, projects, case studies and more. Connecting this data with other tools can be done using various data import and export options in CV Partner.

Using the CV Partner API or SFTP backup service to SharePoint

Using CV Partner as the CV or resume database in your company has lots of benefits and additional features. The recommendation is therefore to use CV Partner as your CV or resume database tool, and have nightly backups of the data to a shared drive or SharePoint site. This should be use for backup only and users should not mistake this backup for their master CV or resume, which should always be up-to-date in CV Partner.

Are you interested in learning more best-practices from working with some of the world's leading professional services firms? Book a call with the sales team to learn more

‍