Big data: your ultimate advanced judgment tool. Or is it? Until recently, it appeared to offer a way of researching job applicants before the interview process. Now, however, industry pundits are at odds about big data's usefulness. Some still feel it is a promising and valuable addition to the human resources repertoire. Others are cautious about analytics and view data aggregation as a conduit to harmful prejudice.
Big data is essentially a massive amount of consumer information: so massive, in fact, that it's impossible to create a consumer profile without the use of an algorithm. The basic principle is that multiple data sources produce a comprehensive picture. Essentially, analytics attempt to fill in the blanks by placing one layer of information over another. In theory, you end up with a largely factual representation of a person's character, spending habits, and family life.
If that sounds incredibly useful—at least from an applicant-filtration point of view—be careful before you make it a favorite tool of your human resources department. Big data comes with a big catch: it's only as good as the information it obtains. From a metaphorical viewpoint, big data is the informational equivalent of a research paper—and a research paper is only as trustworthy as the sources it cites.
Big data collects material from an array of locations in its attempt to calculate an accurate consumer profile—and some sources are much more accurate than others. Public records, for example, may offer reasonably precise results; Facebook, on the other hand can be misleading because its users tend to display quite polarized information. In addition, big data often creates spliced profiles, which are based on two or more entirely different people.
The most recent—and possibly the most incongruous—big data gaffe started out as a publicity stunt designed to draw positive attention to the consumer information industry. In early September 2013, a New York Times article declared that Axciom, a $1.1 billion dollar data-brokering firm, would soon give consumers access to their data profiles via a website entitled AboutTheData.com.
According to Axciom's CEO, honesty and transparency were motivating forces behind the bold move. Members of the public, he said, were invited to visit the website and alter incorrect information on their personal reports. Naturally, logging into the site would require the consumer's full name and address as well as the last four digits of the consumer's social security number.
Critics assert that Axciom's announcement came at a politically strategic time: federal regulators are currently trying to impose limits on what big data can and cannot do. Unfortunately, Axciom's decision to go public with its data backfired after a slew of inaccuracies rendered its consumer reports highly misleading and unsuitable for human resources departments to use. Many individuals' ages, races, locations, interests, and theoretical hobbies were proven incorrect after visitors to the site logged into their profiles.
Simply put, the most complex algorithm in the world still won't hold a candle to a one-on-one conversation—particularly if you intend to hire based on its conclusions. Under some circumstances, big data is powerful enough to deliver a fairly accurate educated guess; sadly, however, it misses the mark—or the entire target—far too often. As a seasoned human resources professional, you'll always be one step ahead of analytics. After all, you have something big data doesn't: human instinct.
(Photo courtesy of Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot / Freedigitalphotos.net)
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