There are many software vendors who offer solutions to HR, recruiting, and sourcing organizations that claim to have automated candidate semantic search and match capability. These applications can take your search, a job description, or an example resume and claim to leverage semantic search, fuzzy logic and/or Artificial Intelligence search technology to return relevant results.

I've had the opportunity to use and evaluate 4 "big name" semantic and intelligent search/match applications for identifying candidates, and I am currently implementing one of them, including cutomizing the taxonomies and ontologies - so I have quite a bit of hands-on, practical experience with semantic search applications. While I do think that intelligent semantic search and match applications definitely have a place in the sourcing and recruiting process, they should not be looked at as solutions to a problem, challenge, or a deficiency in your skills or your team's.

Before implementing a semantic search application, it is important to first understand the manual search process, how automated semantic search works, and the intrinsic limitations of of semantic search applications.

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