DonXML Blog

Xml Schema For Resumes

I’ve been reading the Technical Careers @ Microsoft new blog, and specifically, their post on A good one-page resume for a technical candidate, which got me re-thinking putting my resume into XML.  I’ve always had it on my todo list, but knowing that once I get my resume into XML, there are a ton of cool ideas I have on making it easier to generate custom views of the resume, and very little time to complete those task, I never got around to it.  Plus, I wanted a user friendly application to enter the info.  I always thought I would just create a Word Macro to rip thru my resume and generate the XML of my own schema.  But in thinking about it, I figured that there must be some consortium of businesses that have already created a standard schema for resumes.  With a quick Google search, sure enough, the Hr-Xml Consortium already has a bunch of schemas for HR related info, including resumes.  The website pretty much sucks, you have to register to download the documentation (but you get no user id or password, so if you want to download stuff again, you got to re-register), including the schemas, and even then, you have to pull down the large zip files, and search to find what you are looking for.  No wonder why most folks don’t know about this good stuff, it is so hard to find. 

Now that I had a schema, I need a tool to enter the data.  I was going to use XSD to create the .Net classes and create a WinForm app, but then I realized that InfoPath would be perfect for this (since it includes spell check).  Before going off and developing my own, I hit Google again, and low and behold Microsoft has already has an Office Solution Accelerator for Recruiting that includes an InfoPath form that will generate the XML according to the Hr-Xml schema.  Way cool.

So now there is a quick and easy way to get your resume into XML based on a standard schema, and you no longer have an excuse to not do it (well, assuming you have InfoPath).  There are a bunch of additional things I would like to create to help enhance the whole process:

1. Create a new resume formatting metadata schema to supplement the Hr-Xml schema.  The metadata would be used to create targeting filters that could be used to create customized views of your resume (to focus on specific experiences/technologies, like WinForms or ASP.Net), similar to the XmlResume Library project (which doesn't use the Hr-XML schema, and is in Java).
2. Create XSLTs to translate the Hr-Xml schema to WordML, and HTML, using the resume formatting metadata.
3. Create an XSL-FO to translate the Hr-Xml schema to PDF.
4. Add the ability to use these new features in .Text.  How many people have their resume off .Text, but in HTML, or Word format, and could really use it in XML and take advantage of the formatting metadata?

As soon as I get a chance, I’ll upload the schema and the InfoPath form up to my site, so that it will be easier to get.  Until then, you’ll have to download the Accelerator.

.Net Book Club

Jeff Julian has done it again, and whipped together another cool site (using Kent Tegels’ idea), the .Net Book Club.  Besides a chapter preview of Alex Homer's book ASP.NET 1.1 Insider Solutions, due out in June, you can also participate in the first book of the month, First Look at ADO.NET and System.XML v. 2.0 by Alex Homer, Dave Sussman, Mark Fussell.  Over the month of April we will be discussing the book in detail.  If you are interested in the new features of System.Xml in 2.0 (and face it, who isn’t), then you will want to join.  Jeff tells me that Alex has already signed up and will participate (which will be really cool).  Now we need to just get Dave and Mark involved (hint, hint).

Using Rotor SSCLI to Express Your Ideas

Recently one of the other XML MVPs and I were discussing some of the new XML parsing ideas that have been making the circuit lately, and we were lamenting the fact that we were having a hard time communicating some of our ideas to others, and we aren't even trying to bridge a language barrier.  The XML MVPs have been throwing around a bunch ideas that would require major design changes to the System.Xml namespace.  That isn't something I would expect Microsoft to do without knowing the benefits of those changes, and without access to the System.Xml code and the ability to play with it openly, we would have a hard time expressing our ideas.  Then it hit me, why don't we use the Rotor code?  It was created with the idea of using it as a teaching tool, so why couldn't we use it to help "teach" others about some of our ideas.  Another problem with the different ideas we had was that we couldn't easily determine the ease of use of some of our proposed designs, which is even more important than just making things run faster and better. 

So, I downloaded the Rotor source code, and pulled the System.Xml namespace classes into VS.Net 2K3.  Unfortunately, the way the code was written, you can't just add the source files in the System.Xml directories, and compile the code.  For whatever reason, I had to add the System namespace to several classes, and I couldn't find the static class that the System.Xml classes use to get the error messages out of the resource file.  So I had to write the utility class, and then write a quick project to that would read the resource file and generate all the static members of the utility class.  But now we have the Rotor System.Xml namespace as a complete VS.Net project.  If you want to see how  System.Xml does some of its magic, or if you have some ideas you want to try out, go ahead and download the project.  We added it to the Mvp-Xml project that is hosted on SourceForge, and will use it as our code base, and fork the different ideas off of it.

Reminder - DevDays NJ This Thursday

Just a reminder that DevDays NJ is this Thursday, March 4th and afterwards Scott and I are leading up another NJ Dev Dinner (we cancelled the normal NJMSDEV meeting scheduled for that night).  We are still trying to decide where to go, but Pizzeria Uno at 700 Plaza Drive, Secaucus looks like a good choice.  If you have any other suggestions on a good place to hang in Secaucus, or plan to attend, please contact Scott or myself.  The last NJ Dev Dinner was a blast, and I'm sure you don't want to miss out on this one.