Big Data for hiring - now everyone knows, (including the CEO)

While it can be cool to say and think that old or traditional media is dead or at least dying, (witness CNN's Keystone Cops-like coverage of the Boston Bombings and their wall-to-wall coverage of the Carnival 'poop cruise', interesting only to the people on the actual ship), it is still pretty remarkable to witness, at least in our little HR and HR Tech corner of the world, the sheer power to drive conversation the big, mainstream outlets still wield.

The latest example? The NY Times piece over the weekend titled How Big Data is Playing Recruiter for Specialized Workers, that did admittedly a fine job of covering some HR Tech startups like Gild, TalentBin, and Entelo, and how data, algorithms, and smart machine learning are combining with traditional sourcing methods in attempts to help organizations make better hires faster, and less expensively than in the past.Robert Rauschenberg, Yoicks 1953

It is a good piece and I recommend you checking it out, if you follow this space at all chances are you have already read the article, as it seemed to me over the weekend everyone Tweeted out the link (I did too). Even though these solutions have been out for some time - I just wrote about Gild myself here - once news like this hits the mainstream, you can bet you'll have some explaining to do back in your office about how you and the HR organization plans to leverage this kind of data in hiring and talent management decisions. Let's face it - even though people like me have written about these new technologies, and some of them have been featured at the HR Tech Conference, it's still the rare CEO or COO that has heard about them.  

But drop a feature about these cool new technologies in the Times, on the weekend no less, when Mr. or Ms. CEO is kicking back over brunch with their iPad and has a few minutes to read and think about a piece like this - well some of you are getting an email (maybe it already arrived, 'sent from my iPad') from the CEO with the link and a question along the lines of 'What can we do with this? or 'Are we using Big Data in hiring?'

It is pretty fun to stay on top of the latest trends and catch demos or webinars from the coolest new technologies. It is also fun to be sort of 'in the know', to be the only one in your office or in your local HR community to have some insight and savvy about the latest solutions and tools. You (mostly) get respect and cred from just knowing about them. 

But that position of 'person who knows all about the technology' will only take you so far once everyone else starts catching on too - especially the C-suite types that really only take notice of something until it hits the Times of the Wall St. Journal.  And that is happening my friends.

We're coming up fast to the point where 'awareness' is simply the ante that lets you play in the game. Your bluff is about to be called, by a CEO in a fancy suit, and iPad, and a link to the Times article.

Stay thirsty my friends...