Flailing Around
(October 04, 2007) It's a
myth that flailing around is the only way to recruit without
discriminating. The idea that one should find a replacement who is as
good or better than the departing incumbent is a legitimate and powerful
business objective. Large risk averse organizations are not role models
for competent recruiting.When the
American Government decided that it needed to use matching and sorting
tools, they didn't come to our industry for help. Instead, they went to
Vegas for software that combined facial recognition with social network
information. Casino security systems are the backbone of much of the
anti-terrorist toolkit. Employment matching schemes are barely usable.
The idea that a resume could be used
"whole cloth" as a search query by an intelligent search tool (yesterday's
column) sparked a negative
response from
Romuald. He believes (from
sitting in on meetings with lawyers) that the EEOC would take a dim view
of a search query built from a resume. He thinks that subtle language in
the resume (and therefore, the query) would constitute discrimination on
the face of it. He offers no case law (our attorney says hiring process
lawsuits only happen very, very rarely) but assures his readers that the
practice would be illegal (that's the trouble with blogs).
While the view is part
of a troubling shift in recruiting (from offense to defense), the larger
question about nuance in the resume bears some consideration. Trovix, we
think, is entering our market with a level of search technology that is
qualitatively different from the rest of the pack. Figuring out how to
integrate that new level of expectation is the real issue.
Big things are
happening in search.
Conceptual search
(other than key words) is making a broad comeback. While the Google
approach has dominated the landscape for a long time, scale in
computational power and data is finally making a difference. Yahoo
recently
announced that they will added conceptual answers to search queries.
In other words, they will have a "we think you want this" section at the
top of search results.
Yahoo rightly notes:
One thing we've learned since
launching our own algorithmic search engine back in 2004 is that at
the end of the day, people really don't want to search; they want to
get things done. (Yahoo
Search Blog)
Although it's hard to imagine from here,
the days of keyword searching are numbered. It's a transitional and
primitive phase. Current SEO/SEM approaches (which make gaming the
system part of your employment brand, if you use the techniques) won't
get much traction in a world where the search engine's job is to help
the user. "Gaming the system" will just be one of the concepts that pops
up.
Check your assumptions. The Trovix
offerings is a watershed moment in our business. Search, as a tool, will
be producing ever better results. Get ready to manage your lawyers.
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