International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 6(4) 2019, Pages: 1-8 Contents lists available at Science-Gate International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences Journal homepage: http://www.science-gate.com/IJAAS.html 1 Intelligent decision support system for CV evaluation based on natural language processing Hejab Alfawareh 1, *, Shaidah Jusoh 1, 2 1 Faculty of Computing and IT, Northern Border University, Arar, Saudi Arabia 2 King Hussein School of Computing Sciences, Princess Sumaya University for Technology, Amman, Jordan ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 8 October 2018 Received in revised form 1 February 2019 Accepted 2 February 2019 A curriculum vitae (CV) has become one of the most important documents for applying or hiring any job positions. The CV document is normally assessed by a hiring committee based on some predefined criteria. However, the assessment process is lengthy and fraught with human-engendered bias. To the best of our knowledge, none tool that is able to read and filter CV documents which are presented in texts form had been introduced. The purpose of this research is to create a tool that is able to screen and filter hundreds of CVs automatically. This paper proposed an approach based on natural language techniques to develop the tool. The tool can be considered as a decision support system (DSS) in recruiting new employees. One hundred seventy-eight CV documents were used to test the proposed approach. Obtained results suggest that the proposed approach is successful. Keywords: Intelligent decision support system Natural language processing CV recommendation system Human resource management CV evaluation © 2019 The Authors. Published by IASE. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 1. Introduction *Human resource management (HRM) in any organization is responsible for attracting, assessing, hiring, training, and rewarding employees. In other words, human resource processes include recruitment, development, and management of competent employees. Recruitment activities include screening, selecting, and hiring qualified candidates. Selecting and hiring the “right” candidate for any position can be difficult and costly to many human resource departments. The first process in hiring a new employee is advertising a position on websites, newspapers or social media. In organizations such as universities or colleges, the process of hiring a new academic staff normally starts with an advertisement from a department in need of new academic staff. This advertisement is normally displayed on university or college websites, in a newspaper, and also on relevant social media sites. In the advertisement, any interested individuals are asked to provide an application letter, a curriculum vitae (CV) and contact information of references. A CV is a document which is normally contain personal * Corresponding Author. Email Address: hejab.al-fawareh@nbu.edu.sa (H. Alfawareh) https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2019.04.001 Corresponding author's ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5666-0580 2313-626X/© 2019 The Authors. Published by IASE. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) information, such as name, address, phone numbers, and other information relevant to a dedicated position such academic qualifications, experiences and so on. Almost all universities conduct the same practice in which an individual is asked to submit an application along with a CV document to the dean of the college or department via email. In normal circumstances, a departmental hiring committee is formed under the leadership of a dean. Committee members are selected based on certain criteria such as seniority or expertise needed to select a skilled candidate. The second process of hiring is reviewing each submitted CV. For one faculty position, normally the college/faculty may receive hundreds of emails. Hiring the right candidate is not an easy task. CV review is a process of scrutinizing each document page by page. The hiring committee is responsible for making decisions, assigning a score to each evaluated CV according to its content based on certain criterion such as advanced degrees, publication, research and teaching experiences. In this case, the hiring committee members will use his/her experience, personal judgment, and intuition, to select the most suitable candidate for an offered position. The process is lengthy. However, reliance solely on human knowledge, judgment, and preference may also cause inconsistency in decision making. In some cases, it also may cause bias against certain applicants. Decision support systems can be used to help decision makers in improving and accelerating decision processes and making a fair and consistent decision (Pérez et al., 2010). A