Databases, Recruitment and LinkedIn
I read a couple of articles this week about data mining and recruitment. There are companies that mine large amounts of recruitment data, do some analysis and then discover interesting things.
For example, recruiters typically don't want to employ people with criminal records but it turns out that the data suggests that in customer call centres at least, the people with criminal records perform better. Another one was staff who apply for jobs online - the data suggests that applicants who have installed alternative browsers - Chrome or Firefox - perform better than their colleagues who still use Internet Explorer.
The amusing one though was staff honesty. Generally it's a good thing for organisations to employ honest people. The exception though is sales where the data suggests that dishonest staff do better!
The articles are here and here.
There was more about data mining and recruitment at the #BuyYorkshire event in Leeds yesterday. I saw Chris Brown, Senior Sales Manager at LinkedIn, give a talk about the data that LinkedIn has, the insights it gives them into organisations and the way it's changing how organisations recruit.
The data that LinkedIn now have is impressive and maybe a bit scary. There are over 200m LinkedIn members worldwide and everyone in yesterday's audience was a member. Chris had a great chart that showed how staff moved between the major banks after the financial crash of 2008 - which banks got most staff from the banks that collapsed. There was another that ranked companies by staff turnover - all based on data pulled out of the LinkedIn database.
Recruitment is changing. Increasingly employers are asking candidates to apply with their LinkedIn profiles - just a click of a button. It works for the employer because they can attract applications from candidates who are more settled in their current role and don't have an up-to-date CV.
We should upgrade Skills Matrix at some point soon and add some LinkedIn integration. There's a well documented LinkedIn API for software developers who want to integrate their own applications.
LinkedIn does seem to be everywhere at the moment. Search for a person now on Google and you get back LinkedIn profiles - sometimes pages of them. LinkedIn must have done some deal with Google. Maybe there'll be a LinkedIn app for Google Glass? How long before you can stand on a railway station platform, look at someone and then immediately see their LinkedIn profile and your shared connections? The technology for that - it needs some facial recognition software - is probably already available.
