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I dunno, I was accutely aware that as I prepared to find a new job by updating my resume, updating my LinkedIn profile and contact list for the first time in ye

I dunno, I was accutely aware that as I prepared to find a new job by updating my resume, updating my LinkedIn profile and contact list for the first time in years, etc., that it would be very obvious to anyone watching what I was doing. I correctly assumed my employer wasn’t watching (which would have made things potentially uncomfortable for me), but with tools like this it becomes so low effort to watch for this stuff that they can afford to do it. No, not everyone is like me and ignores LinkedIn while actively and happily employed, but I imagine enough people are and that it’s not so hard to build models of other user types that work as advertised (as long as they have access to the public data). HiQ is a threat to LinkedIn on two fronts: as a direct competitor and as a reason for some people to opt out of using the service (though it appears LinkedIn offers similar services, so perhaps the threat is more the Streisand effect at work). That doesn’t mean HiQ should be locked out of the data of course, but it makes for an interesting and complicated situation.

CalChris 9y ago
I'm not saying that social media doesn't exist and that anything you say can't and won't be used against you in a court of law. It will be. What I am saying is that relying on a complex model based on this is just rank silliness. Still, I guarantee that that rank silliness will be a product, it will be sold and and it will be bought. For a big market with small bets (ads) this makes sense. For a small market with big bets (employment) it doesn’t make sense, to me at least.
- 21 9y ago
  I think you make the mistake of not thinking in statistics. It doesn't matter if it's not always right, it only matters if it's better than what they have at the moment (ie: almost nothing). Like the quoted bank said in the article, improving retention by 1% can lower costs by 100 mil per year. Offering a raise to people polishing their Linked in page sounds like low hanging fruit to me. And of course, employees will try to game the system, which will become smarter and so on.
  - CalChris 9y ago
    A statistician went duck hunting. His first shot was a foot high. His second shot was a foot low. When asked about it he said, On average, that's a dead duck. As I said, there are markets, large markets like ad auctions, where this approach makes sense. But for HR, I'd have to see this being a demonstrable success story before I'd touch it. I think there are better and easier approaches to retention like treating your employees well rather than looking at a statistics dashboard and following its sage if soul-less advice.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  I'm not willing to take that chance. There are enough shitheads in management that would see something like this and pounce on it, to where it might become an actual problem for lots of people. Remember, we live in a world where coffee shops and Jimmy Johns (sandwich shop) decided that they needed to subject their employees to pretty draconian non-compete agreements.
makr17 9y ago
A former coworker has a theory that you can accurately assess corporate morale by monitoring the volume of http requests to linkedin over time...

CalChris 9y ago

I'm not saying that social media doesn't exist and that anything you say can't and won't be used against you in a court of law. It will be. What I am saying is that relying on a complex model based on this is just rank silliness. Still, I guarantee that that rank silliness will be a product, it will be sold and and it will be bought. For a big market with small bets (ads) this makes sense. For a small market with big bets (employment) it doesn’t make sense, to me at least.

21 9y ago
I think you make the mistake of not thinking in statistics. It doesn't matter if it's not always right, it only matters if it's better than what they have at the moment (ie: almost nothing). Like the quoted bank said in the article, improving retention by 1% can lower costs by 100 mil per year. Offering a raise to people polishing their Linked in page sounds like low hanging fruit to me. And of course, employees will try to game the system, which will become smarter and so on.
- CalChris 9y ago
  A statistician went duck hunting. His first shot was a foot high. His second shot was a foot low. When asked about it he said, On average, that's a dead duck. As I said, there are markets, large markets like ad auctions, where this approach makes sense. But for HR, I'd have to see this being a demonstrable success story before I'd touch it. I think there are better and easier approaches to retention like treating your employees well rather than looking at a statistics dashboard and following its sage if soul-less advice.
s73ver_ 9y ago
I'm not willing to take that chance. There are enough shitheads in management that would see something like this and pounce on it, to where it might become an actual problem for lots of people. Remember, we live in a world where coffee shops and Jimmy Johns (sandwich shop) decided that they needed to subject their employees to pretty draconian non-compete agreements.

makr17 9y ago

A former coworker has a theory that you can accurately assess corporate morale by monitoring the volume of http requests to linkedin over time...