The tech tools to help spot talent

As the need for increasingly skilled and specialised talent increases, new technological tools are applying data analytics to the recruitment process.

Robots and computer intelligence replacing a human workforce – it’s a futuristic but not altogether far-fetched scenario. However, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, from MIT’s Center for Digital Business, don’t see it as a threatening one. The authors of The Second Machine Age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies, say that, in spite of all the progress we have seen so far, digital communications are only now realising their potential.

In the same way as electricity and steam came to prominence in the industrial age – and worried plenty of the contemporary workforce – those jobs being replaced by technology, say Brynjolfsson and McAfee, are often routine or relatively undemanding tasks for people. Encouragingly, the need for increasingly highly skilled, creative and specialised talent will fill the void.

In terms of new hires, demand for software developers, systems analysts and web developers is exploding, as is recruitment in the IT sector in general. To keep apace, the education system needs to up its game to meet employers’ needs for a broader, more flexible and intellectual skillset that complements the tasks machines do well.

The problem lies in finding the best candidates when the playing field has changed.

Crosshead: Big data comes to recruitment

Lee Chant, Hays’ UK IT and Telecomms MD, says big data is useful in volume-based and low-level recruitment. “However,” he adds, “specialist skills also require a certain level of personal application and currently this data-crunching, through products such as Ceridian, just does not yield the same results.”

In Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball, a coach can pick the best baseball players by number-crunching their statistics. The example is now ubiquitous in business seminars and people analytics – the application of reductive analytics to careers.

A host of service providers are supporting this development:

• Gilt  helps rank web developers, based on their contributions to open source repository Github and activity on social media
• Evolv  gathers and analyses data to help pick the best candidates
• Gamification provider Knack says it can generate data on problem-solving and flexibility more effectively than a personality test can. Instead, it assesses leadership and innovation potential through game-like activities.

Apps like Knack’s Wasabi Waiter and Balloon Brigade might not seem like the cutting edge of behavioural science – and they are a long way from replacing a hiring process that is decades in the making. However, they are useful tools to add to the armoury for businesses to win the hiring battle. And who is going to say no to that?

Author

Steve Weston

Chief Customer Officer, Hays

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Steve joined Hays in January 2008 as Chief Information Officer. His career began in Car Manufacturing in 1977 and he then moved into the Financial Services sector in 1987. In 1997 Steve moved into the IT services sector and held the position of UK Managing Director for Xansa plc until December 2007. Steve currently holds a number of roles at Hays including Chief Customer Officer.