There are a host of new analytics tools and algorithms that mix behavioral psychology, personality tests and motivation that are staring to be used in the job search process. Basically what has been done by humans is slowly being outsourced to machines.
As a job seeker it might seem a little bit disconcerting to entrust a machine or algorithm to make hiring decisions. What if the machine is wrong? Well, a parallel can be drawn for self driving cars. Relying on AI and machines to drive us around might seem scary at first, but once it works properly, being in a self-driving cars is going to be infinitely safer than driving yourself. Machines don’t drink and drive nor do they get distracted texting.
Similarly, humans are pretty bad when it comes to interviewing. They fall prey to confirmation bias and a slew of other psychological fallacies. A machine, on the other hand, is able to make non-bias decision and take some of the guess-work and emotions out of hiring. This is going to make it more fair for you in the end, so you can definitely expect to be using some of this new technology pretty soon.
Here are a few tools to keep an eye on. They can already be used by job seekers and also might be used by employers to assess your culture fit and skills.
Attuned.ai
Products like Attuned | Predictive HR Analytics incorporate the idea of “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to assess what factors drive individuals and then helps use this to predict company turnover. If you have a job seeker that is motivated by autonomy and stability, but their manager is a micromanager and the company is a startup that’s unstable by definition, then you’re going to have a problem. This could be used in the job screening process and also to assess current employees.
Pymetrics
Pymetrics is another interesting platform that was started by a team of Harvard and MIT neuroscientists. They call it “gamified neuroscience.” As a job seeker you can go in and play a host of games for about 30 minutes that spits out what jobs will best match you, and as an employer you can find the best candidates for the types of jobs you have.
VR
Virtual reality is mostly gaming-focused now but it’s also a smart way for employers to attract and weed out candidates. Job seekers can throw on a headset and get a feel for what it would be like to work in the office. Lawyers can feel what it’s like to be in a courtroom — this is exactly what a group of lawyers did for a career fair they hosted. Interview questions in the future could be pre-recorded via VR and then a hologram of you answering them could be sent to the employer for review.
In conclusion, the recruitment industry is ripe for disruption. There will of course be ethical implications to deal with as we move closer to fully automating parts of the job search, and we’ll deal with it soon enough. While most of this tech is still in very early stages, there’s definitely room to use these in the recruitment process and I think every job seeker and employer should be experimenting with these.
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mishainjapan
Japan-based writer, consultant and entrepreneur.