Big Data in Talent Hunt

Finished reading the book The Talent Equation and it was more about findings from big data, specifically CareerBuilder’s big data than about how to use big data. The book was written by the CEO of CareerBuilder with the help of two others, so there is going to be a little bit of some promotion about the site.

But not much really.

He used the immense data he has on hand plus some other surveys to answer some questions such as:

Is there any value to higher education? For businesses? For workers? Are there certain functions where it is of value to hire those with higher education?

Does tenure add value to businesses or does it even matter anymore?

Training and reskilling: should companies wait for the perfect hire or should they be doing some training/reskilling? How about the long-term unemployed?

What is the impact of current recruiting practices? How do candidates assess employers and what is the impact of negative perceptions?

What are the tools available in this era of digital technology? What should recruiters do?

Why do employees leave and others stay? How do leading companies retain talent?

This book was a fascinating read  because the author had a lot of interesting findings from his various research. He feels companies need to do more training and that lack of training may well be a contributor to the skills gap. He also suggests that companies improve the recruitment process, especially the ATS systems, as it is a form of branding, specifically employment brand.

For those of you who are in the business of recruiting, CareerBuilder has an interesting tool that enables you to look at the data for labor supply and demand. It is called the Supply and Demand Portal. It can tell you where you are likely to find your candidates and what is the average salary. Apparently you can use this hard data when working with hiring managers on sourcing talent and offering pay. Fuller descriptions of the its use can be found in chapter 6. Also in chapter 6 is a discussion about the tool Talent Network.

I’ve given just a cursory description as this is supposed to be a post, not a book. I can’t give justice to all of the interesting insights that the book offers so you will have to buy the book. But I found it to be worthwhile reading.