I googled the crap out of this but can’t find a single link that talks about talent management, recruiting or anything in the HR space that works like Pandora does for music. Maybe I’m all wet. Maybe I should have checked with Josh Letourneau. Maybe it’s a bagillion dollar idea that I’m giving away here but…
Talent Management and Recruiting Should Work Like Pandora
If you’re not up to speed on Pandora, it is a web-based (and mobile) music service that helps you find new music – music you will like. You put in your preferences (ie: music you like) and then it plays that music AND through a proprietary algorithm (love that word – makes ya sound so smart) it finds other music similar to what you put in and plays that as well. You then have the opportunity to vote “yes” or “no” on that new music to help the algorithm fine tune its recommendations.
Over time Pandora learns what you like and continues to serve up musical goodness with a lot of new music that you already like but weren’t aware of. It is eerily accurate.
Where’s Pandora for Talent?
Thinking about talent management, I couldn’t help but think that our lives would be much, much better if we had a system for talent management that worked like Pandora. We’d put in our “preferences” – the data on those employees that were in the top 10% of all reviews over the past few years. The system would then connect to say, LinkedIn, and pull those profiles with “similar” data. To be the negative me – you could do the same thing with the bottom 10% of your workforce as well to create a watch list for those profiles that historically have been non-starters in your company.
This isn’t a LinkedIn only idea but could work for just about any job board.
As you used the system (and as your company or culture changed) you could thumbs up or thumbs down certain profiles to help the algorithm learn your business requirements.
Identifying those traits, codifying them in a system and then applying a learning algorithm would seem to me a great time saver and help eliminate the “human” factor at the front end. Not saying we should eliminate the human factor in total, but in my experience, the first cut we take at any employee search is to use very specific and quantifiable elements to reduce the pile from “all resumes” to “some resumes.”
I’m just suggesting that we let a computer program that learns about us and our successes (and failures) do that front-end work for us.
Is that out there? Should it be? Why isn’t it?
Paul Hebert is Vice President of Individual Performance Strategy at Creative Group Inc, writer, speaker and consultant. Paul focuses on influencing behaviors and driving business results through employees, channel partners and consumers. He is dedicated to creating true emotional connections often overlooked in our automated, tech-enabled world. Using proven motivational theory, behavioral economics and social psychology he has driven extraordinary company performance for his clients. Paul is widely considered an expert on motivation, incentives, and engagement.