Will Microsoft Word follow? Human Resources recruiters will receive welcome news this week when Oracle announces that its Human Resources Management System will use the HR-XML standard for data exchange.Developed by the HR-XML Consortium, over the long run the standard promises to reduce time spent in manually re-inputting resumes into custom systems and fees expended for resume parsing software and services.Among the Consortium membership are Oracle, PeopleSoft, IBM, Monster.com, and Hire.com. If accepted industrywide, resumes from any source will interface with HR applications and with recruiting software such as RecruitSoft and with online recruitment services such as Monster.com.The standard may also get a boost from Microsoft, which already has incorporated XML schema in its Office products. Sources say the Redmond giant will incorporate the HR-XML standard as one of its document formats in a future version of Word.One industry analyst said that the HR-XML standard, unlike many other standards, is a real-world practical solution. “If Microsoft and HR vendors adopt this, it doesn’t get much better than that in the standards world,” said Joshua Greenbaum, principal at Enterprise Applications Consulting.The fallout from a standard in HR document format even goes beyond HR and will ease the operations and effectiveness of the hosted model, according to D. J. Chhabra, vice president of HR Development at Oracle. “A standard like this drives the hosting model,” said Chhabra. Software DevelopmentTechnology Industry