How useful is online data analysis in recruitment?
Employers are turning more and more to big data analytics to inform their recruitment processes.
With the growing usage of internet-based job search and social media networking, increasing amounts of personal data are becoming available online. The usefulness of these online matchmaking tools has long been recognized; our author Peter J. Kuhn discusses online recruitment methods, with reference to how they can streamline labor markets.
More time is now being focused on these vast quantities of available data, to further improve job matching efficiency. Recruitment consultancies, such as Experis, analyze the job history and skills of their millions of previous job applicants, in order to assess career trends. These are used to predict aspirations and career paths of current applicants.
Ben Hutt of the job site Talent Party has spoken about the numerous advantages this can bring to firms and applicants. He said that effective algorithms and analysis can “match suitable candidates to relevant jobs quickly and efficiently, saving human resource managers a lot of time.”
However, successful recruitment relies on more than just a skills assessment. Research from Leadership IQ estimates that 89% of workers who lose employment within 18 months of starting a job fail due to attitudinal reasons, compared to 11% who fail due to a lack of relevant skills. Such attitude issues can include: difficulty in responding to coaching or criticism; low levels of emotional intelligence; and low levels of motivation.
With this in mind, employers are turning to other aspects of a candidate’s online footprint in order to assess their personality and behavioral profiles. Activity on social media or blogs presents far more expansive and idiosyncratic data which can be analyzed.
For example, recruitment technology firm Electronic Insight assesses a candidate’s language patterns and structures to draw conclusions about their personality and attitude. These can then be compared against the cultural profile of the recruiting company.
US games developer Knack offers even more creative recruitment tools. Employers can ask applicants to play games designed to analyze specific skills and personality traits, such as problem-solving and risk-taking.
Our author Kuhn writes that the value of yielding useful data from online recruitment tools “is only now being realized.” If used effectively, the potential benefits for employers will continue to emerge. However, Kuhn also notes that this may lead to questions of stronger regulation in the near future.
Read more here.
Related article:
The internet as a labor market matchmaker, by Peter J. Kuhn