How to make applying for jobs less painful | The Way We Work, a TED series

We have more open jobs more than unemployed people, what does that say about our hiring process?

Studies show that 75% of those who've applied online don't hear back from the employer, and it isn't much different on the company level because about 46% of employees either get fired or quit within their first year.

The resume is a piece of paper that describes our skills, roles we've had, languages we speak, but what it misses is that it doesn't show the potential that we might not have had the opportunity to do so in the past.

With such a quickly changing economy, our resumes stay talking about what we've done in the past therefore we're not going to be able to match people to the jobs of the future because companies are looking for skills that aren't learned yet.

Putting our trust into an algorithm in order to land us a job is pretty scary to think about but there is one thing that has been shown to be really predictive of someone's future success in a job, and it's called the multi-measure test.

This test is a combination of assessments that measure cognitive abilities, personality traits, and values. 

With the ever-growing technology, we can apply the test to an algorithm that's measurable and scalable so that it can provide data to employers about what the traits are of someone who can be a good fit for the job.

If we're building algorithms based on top performers, how can we make sure that we're not just perpetuating the biases that already exist?

The thing with technology is that it poses the opportunity of being able to create algorithms that are more equitable and more fair.  

When we focus on the inherent characteristics that can make somebody fit for the job we can transcend racism, classism, sexism, ageism, and even good school-ism.