Love, dating & predictive technology
Decades ago if you were seeking a specific individual, for either an incredible romantic encounter or a perfect fit for an available job role, you would likely be spending months searching for someone who unfortunately only met minimum criteria.
The reach of the internet has changed that profoundly. With the flick of a power button, an incredible number of prospects became available to interact with for both dating and professional opportunities. Both romantics and recruiters have more information available to them than they would have ever dreamed of.
The internet allowed people from around the world to connect with millions of other people residing anywhere. Dating sites began to gain popularity and match possible love interests together, and recruiting processes were unrecognisably transformed, going from newspaper advertisements and job boards to a digital world. However, this tidal wave of new opportunities came with a new challenge, too much to choose from, too much information.
The Challenge of Too Many Suitors
In recruitment, as well as in romance, what you have to offer can attract a lot of interested parties, which is not always a good thing. Typically a job advertisement draws in hundreds of applicants, whilst dating app Tinder reports receiving over 1.4 billion swipes per day.
It is not hard to see how that amount of data can be difficult to manage, lovers and recruiters begin to dismiss prospective talent without time to do a thorough inspection of all interested.
In the dating game, you may not get through the entire lineup of suitors and give up searching, settling with what could end up to being a less fulfilling choice. With a recruiting campaign it equates to missing out on what could have been the best matched candidate for a particular job, and wasting countless hours sifting through sometimes bloated or often misleading resumes.
The process can be very costly if one is depending heavily on referrals or choosing a candidate based on the idea that they fit minimum skills criteria for the job role, when in fact there could have been a better suited applicant for the role if you had a more efficient way to find those with the right temperament and combined with skills.
How does one choose from a tsunami of interest?
Internet dating companies such as OKCupid have been at the forefront of processing large amounts of user-supplied data with effective algorithms, as well as recognising dating trends. OKCupid became famous for being able to match their users together into willing dating pairs. This form of data science became one the internet’s first smart technology products in terms of bringing people together to solve their wants or needs.
Just as in the love scene, recruitment has a very defined process with a number of parallel steps. Recruitment teams must seek out applicants that are capable to complete the tasks of a role (experience and qualifications), but they also need to be attractive to an organisation in terms of personality, temperament for the role and culture fit.
Related article: How to fall in love with recruiting again
For example, will the applicant fit right into the business from the start and be productive, add to the company’s capabilities in relation to existing teams? Will the values of the company be upheld, is the candidate adaptable and can the candidate bring in genuine experience to lift the organisation? These questions can be challenging to answer quickly or efficiently, especially when flooded with a large number of applicants.
With the use of automation, like the kind employed by dating sites, the task can be completed with increased speed. Enough data can be supplied by any prospect talent to make the hiring process very easy.
Predictive Technology software can collate data from multiple sources too, and then generate a very detailed presentation of a person within seconds. This information can then allow recruiters to view top talents and support their hiring decisions before any direct screening is needed.
The second major pain point solved by the dating world’s matching algorithms is just as critical. Possessing faster recruiting campaigns is not enough, that is because the expense of a misplaced hire can rise to over one and a half times an employee’s annual income in terms of financial cost and time lost. Repetition of that can add up considerably.
To increase retention of employees predictive hiring technology considers the company landscape, and job role from a psychometric standpoint from people that demonstrate superiority in that role and matches that with prospective employees, seeking out the best match. Customised recruitment solutions are designed to do just that and have been doing so successfully for years.
In this modern age we have an incredible amount of connectivity and ability to interact through technology. The endless choice can be daunting when wanting to make the best decision, however with intelligent tools at our finger tips, finding our ideal match has never been more possible, this translates not only to finding amazing partners but also hiring better employees that add value to organisations from day one.