Sometimes there’s a post so thought provoking it just begs to be blogged:
In my last post I wrote that online dating services would show us where online recruiting was headed. I believe this to be the case because they are both expressions of the same basic problem: how do I find a person who (fill in the blank). While the requirements may change, the processes have significant similarities…
And yet, if you look at Match.com, there is no analog to eBay’s member ratings. At first, this seems like a stunning omission: good user feedback scores on members would be hugely valuable to members and by extension to Match, which would obtain a proprietary advantage over other dating sites the same way Amazon’s customer ratings give them an advantage over Barnes & Noble. ((Kingsbury, Colin, May 11, 2006. “Social Computing and Reputation Systems” retrieved from HRMDirect.com on May 11, 2006.))
So between fits of laughter, I think back to the Web 2.0 discussion about how all this internet technology is supposed to be changing our work lives and while the applications might be out there, once again I just don’t see it. Call me a non-visionary. However, you do have sites like LinkedIn where users are posting “kudos” type ratings on each other and giving the virtual thumbs up, these “networking” sites may not be replacing standard recruiting as soon as the advocates state.
I guess the question is how we can effectively replace the “first date.” I’m not so excited about eBay ratings as you’re not really going to pass up a date on those terms anyway (unless the rating is from a good friend of yours who has first hand knowledge, the rating is meaningless). And let’s face it, the only real on-line dating service that seems to be working with any measure of success is probably eHarmony.com where the premise is that you don’t get to meet your interviewee until you’ve been matched by the service, and anonymously trade dozens of anonymous messages back and forth to prove your interest and compatibility (So I’ve been told by friends).
If the above is the only successful measure of on-line dating, it would make sense mimicking unsuccessful dating services would yield unsuccessful recruiting sites. However, if there is a conversion for successful recruiting, would a recruiter and company actually invest all that time and effort into not meeting someone? Recruiters already have all the tools: they can quantitatively measure candidates, they can message and talk as much as they want until they are satisfied there’s a match. What makes eHarmony successful is the anonymity differentiator. In a business world, that’s just not sensible.
4 responses to “Online Dating Applied to HR Technology”
Online Dating Applied to HR Technology May 12, 2006 on 2:00 am | by Systematic HR Sometimes there’s a post so thought provoking it just begs to be blogged: In my last post I wrote that online dating services would show us where online recruiting was headed. I believe this to be the
Glad the post was interesting to someone besides me. Looking back I realized I came at the point a little bit too sideways. A week earlier I had responded to a post by Phil Bogle that was wasking for “more authentic conversations” to take place in the open between candidates and recruiters. My contention was that this was not a domain where authentic conversations would necessarily be a good thing.
It’s hard to suppress the giggle reflex when talking about dating but I think it’s a great place to look for examples. eHarmony is interesting because they are very different. Most sites allow any member to contact any other member, while eHarmony only gives you specific matches based on a personality profile test. Everything else after that is icing. This would be nearly impossible to translate to the Monster/Careerbuilder world due to concerns about test validity and adverse impact.
The point is that either way it would be great to have some idea that the person you are about to go on a date with or bring in for an interview is a complete wack job, compulsive liar, etc. And as a jobseeker it would be great to know that the recruiter you are about to visit is a con artist, or not. *IF* social computing techniques could produce this sort of information, they would be a huge boon to dating and recruiting services alike.
This, to me, is the value that Bogle’s “authentic conversations” would provide. The eBay example is simply using the most well-known and successful reputation system out there as a point of comparison.
But, the catch is that there are dynamics to dating (which translate almost 1-for-1 to recruiting) which conspire to produce conversations that are perhaps authentic, but unhelpful. A person who writes that his/her date was “snobby, arrogant, and stuck-up” might or might not be giving a truly honest evaluation, and it would be very hard to tell the good from the bad.
For anyone who’s interested, here are links to the rest of this conversation thread:
Authentic Conversations and Rectuiting
Social computing, sunlight, recruiting, and rejection
Bogle responds to Colin
[…] Posted in HROnline Dating Applied to HR Technology May 12, 2006 4:00am from systematicHR Sometimes there’s a post so thought provoking it just begs to be blogged: In my last post I wrote that online dating services would show us where online recruiting was headed. I believe this to be the case because they are both expressions of the same basic problem: how do I find a person who (fill […] [Read Entry] […]