by Angela Guess
Tom Foremski recently wrote in ZDnet, “Romantic relationships, and a person’s relationship with their work, would seem to be too distant and the experience too different to be comparable, yet eHarmony believes its success with the lonely can be put to use to make happier workplaces, and match people with jobs they love. And if eHarmony’s algorithms could also help build more diversity in the workplace, there are many Silicon Valley companies that would love to place an order because this has become a very hot topic and there’s no quick solution. I spoke with Dr. Steve Carter who heads the recently launched eHarmony venture: Elevated Careers. He says the same data science, derived from eHarmony’s many years in the dating and mating scene, are applicable to our relationship with work.”
Foremski goes on, “If it can bring a fraction of that accuracy to predict a person’s job satisfaction, Elevated Careers will have made a start on its mission of repairing, ‘A broken recruitment model that costs US businesses $11 billion a year.’ Could the same data science be used to help employers make their workplaces more diverse? Could Elevated Careers match people’s diversity with compatibility in the workplace? Many Silicon Valley companies are searching for ways to add more diversity by increasing numbers of women, minorities, etc. ‘Oh no, we stay away from that type of protected information,” says Carter… Elevated Careers can’t help build diverse workplaces because it is illegal for a company, or its agents, to discriminate in its hiring practices, based on a candidate’s qualities of diversity, rather than job qualifications.”
Photo credit: Elevated Careers