The internet is an ocean of information and you can easily get drowned in it. Forget analytics, if we were to simply apply logic, consider the immense amount of information constantly proliferating online added to that the recruitment industry sieves through from various sources, like resumes, applications, reviews, feedbacks, etc, we can positively conclude that the future of the industry is going to be Big Data, instead of mining for data in the closet .
However, in theory, Big Data happens to still be in an early stage of development. This will change in 2019 and for the better.
It is after all impossible to recruit the same way we did 10 even 5 years ago! Like all other fields of technology, what worked once upon a time can’t work now. It is vital to be up to date with the latest technologies to be on the top. It’s the same for the hiring industry as well. Candidates change according to trends and it is important that even recruiters change to be able to keep up with the candidates. This is the age of ‘passive’ and ‘self-employment’ and hence it is necessary to be equipped with enough technology to tackle these areas.
Here are some ways Big Data is doing its part in revamping the recruitment game in 2019.
But, before jumping right into how big data is beneficial for the recruitment industry, it is important to know what is it and how it works. Using anything without knowing how it works can surely lead to disaster! It’s like playing with fire without knowing you cannot play with it and not get burned!
So here’s a brief introduction
What is Big Data?
Everyone seems to be talking about Big data but what exactly is it? Data is something which is as common as the air we breathe. Data has been in existence long before the concept of Big data came into existence.
To put it in simple terms, Big data is large volumes of data both structured and unstructured. The concept of three Vs is the base on which big data is built. The three Vs stand for
- Volume – The amount of data
- Velocity – The speed at which data is processed
- Variety – The many forms of data.
Big Data Analytics has various stages:
- Identifying the problem
- Defining the requirements
- Pre-processing of the data
- Analyzing the data using various analytics
- Seeing the data in visual form
Big Data Analysis has various parts:
- Descriptive Analytics
- Predictive Analytics
- Prescriptive Analytics
Descriptive Analytics: As the name suggests, descriptive analytics does exactly that, describes the data! It collects raw through various methods like data mining and makes it understandable to the human mind. Descriptive analytics is more of what has happened in the past. It doesn’t matter how old the data is. It can be of a minute ago or from months ago. Descriptive analytics deals with all of it. Google Analytics tool is a typical example.
Predictive Analytics: Link descriptive, predictive analytics is also understandable from its name. It gives insights about what might happen in the future so that it is easy to be prepared with the course of action for the future.
Prescriptive Analytics: This part of the analysis can be a preceding step of predictive analytics in the broad sense. After the prediction happens in the prediction phase, how to tackle the problems predicted is the question. This is where prescriptive analytics jumps into action with its algorithms which can advise the actions to be taken to arrive at the solution.
How does Big Data Beneficial For The Recruitment Industry?
A big and initial part of recruitment is gathering data. Descriptive analytics comes into the picture at this point where algorithms can be used to mine data for contacts and information which can be of potential candidates which will, later on, fill empty positions. Predictive analytics helps HRs to decide what to do with the data they have got and how to process the information for better hiring decisions.
With big data employee retention becomes more manageable. Employee retention is time and cost saving but retaining your top performing employees can be hard if you don’t have the proper plan and strategy. Predictive analytics can help tell you what ways to use to make your employees be loyal to you. It can also forecast your future hiring needs. Analytics can tell you which demographics work for your organization or where you need to hire according to the market standards.
One more major plus point of using big data analytics is that you can be prepared with training sessions as per the prediction made by predictive analysis and take the advice of prescriptive analytics to decide the plan for training and management.
Hiring methods keep changing with time and what worked for you a few years ago might not work today. The internet is crowded with a large amount of data and not everything which is available can be of use in recruitment. It is not sufficient to just have candidate resumes in the age where a lot more is available on the web through various platforms like linkedIn. Big data helps with gathering all this important information using its various complex algorithms.
Engaging with potential candidates becomes easier with big data as the number of high performing applicants narrows down without you having to put all your effort doing it manually while you could be doing something more beneficial. With fewer numbers, the quality of engagement increases rather than the quantity which is far more beneficial to the organization in the long run. Using Analytics minuses the guesswork which can greatly increase the probability of having high performing loyal employees in the future. Depending on your intuition doesn’t always work and in some cases can prove to be more damaging than the cost of hiring itself. The world has become a small place with the invent of the internet and having employees from across the globe is not a rare sight. This is one more area where analytics plays an important role. It helps in hiring talent from across the world without having to break your bank or drain the candidate’s pockets with all the travelling involved in such recruitment procedures.
Finding the right candidate is the key to having a successful organization. And you can’t do it by using plain old methods. You need to be smart enough to use what’s available for you and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Like anything else, the success of big data in the field of recruitment depends on how you put it to use. Big Data Analytics also comes with its fair share of advantages and disadvantages like any other technology do.
How does it work?
Skipping the technical jargons, here is a very simple explanation of how Big data goes about doing its business.
Big data recruiting goes on an exploratory hunt into the Internet wilderness and brings back a wealth of information on the candidate and special emphasis is on those who demonstrate their expertise on social media channels.
Then, data aggregation happens. Details are packed into a resume, job descriptions, applications, scanned business cards, brochures, databases, etc
Recruiters deploy online assessment tests to analyze, measure skills and understand even the intangibles like a candidate’s ideal patterns, morale, etc
Armed with this information, the algorithm goes to work. The result will be plated in an array of information in the form of patterns and matches. You can thank keywords and scores that help narrow down the initial pool of candidate information.
Easy as it may sound. It’s not trucks of data churned, crunched and parcelled to you the recruiter. The algorithm interprets the parsing and interpreting that shows up as results.
To manage and accurately process the data, categorizing it in the right manner is important. The effort will be amiss if a recruiter does not access and analyze the information in their database to actually make sense of what the data says about a candidate.
What one should not forget in the end is that recruitment is a man plus machine approach. Embracing the advancing role Big Data plays in candidate searches we should understand that it is, in the end, the discretion of a recruiter to fully engage a candidate in an opportunity.
Even though technology can play a major role and take the recruitment process to an all-new level, the human element is definitely deeply integrated into the process of recruiting. Careful consideration of what works and doesn’t work is important to make good hiring decision which will bring great dividends to the company.
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