Why Jobs Are Harder to Get Today
It only took forever, but you’ve finally graduated from college. You’ve spent years of your life working hard every day and you’re finally ready to enter the workforce as a skilled employee. Yet, something’s off. You’ve applied to dozens of job openings but every time all you get is an automated rejection. Certainly, you didn’t do anything wrong?
Today, more and more companies are resorting to using algorithms and big data to select which employees to hire. Due to the large number of people that apply to job openings, making an algorithm narrow down the selection of candidates is a cost-saving measure most employers have taken advantage of. These algorithms often make their decisions on who to move forward in the application process based on social media posts, keyword filtering on resumes, and more.
However, as Cathy O’Neil says in her book titled “Weapons of Math Destruction”, “Indeed, attempting to reduce human behavior, performance, and potential to algorithms is no easy job”. The data available from social media posts and resumes is often not enough to create a valid assessment of some job applicants. On top of that, some people don’t even use social media while others use it all the time which can affect how much data the algorithm has to work with. But, due to how much money algorithms save in the job process for employers, the chance of missing out on some great employees is worth it, “And the victims? Well, an internal data scientist might say, no statistical system can be perfect. Those folks are collateral damage.” (Cathy O’Neil).
Unfortunately for those of us who might’ve made some regretful posts when we were younger, it’s possible that those posts will haunt us forevermore as job application algorithms take them into account when deciding who to hire. It doesn’t matter that you’ve worked hard, graduated, and matured as a person since then — all that matters is that the algorithm saw who you used to be and made its decision. And if it’s wrong? Well, I guess you’re just collateral damage.
In the future, algorithms might improve to the point where they’re just as good as a human looking at a resume. Nevertheless, until that day comes, many qualified applicants will be unfairly rejected just for making an embarrassing post years ago or writing a resume without using keywords that the algorithm likes.
Sources:
O’Neil, C. (2017). Weapons of math destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. Great Britain: Penguin Books.
Alexandra. (2021, January 15). Big data recruiting: All you need to know to get started. Retrieved February 11, 2021, from https://harver.com/blog/big-data-recruiting/
Ideally. (n.d.). Employers continue rejecting jobseekers because of social media content. Retrieved February 11, 2021, from https://www.cbia.com/news/hr-safety/employers-continue-rejecting-jobseekers-social-media/
