How Do You Find A Job? Ask The Algorithm

From NPR |by Ilya Marritz

November 6, 2009

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Karen Williamson/NYS Department of Labor

Employment
counselor Frank Julian shows a job seeker, Karim Cruz-Neal, how to use
the department's latest tool - an algorithm - to find employment leads.

November 6, 2009 from WNYC

The
state of New York is looking for ways to reduce the time the unemployed
spend looking for jobs, and it's turning to a mathematical formula for
help.

The state's Department of Labor is touting the new tool
as a major leap forward in the search for jobs. The formula is designed
to direct resumes to the employers most likely to make a hire.

So
far, Minnesota is the only other state to use this kind of fancy math
to try to connect workers with jobs. There are no hard data, but a
spokesperson for the state says the program has been working well.

A New York State Of Mind

Lisa
Berger is one of the very first New Yorkers to test what this computer
program can do. She has a couple of decades of experience as a
publishing executive and, more recently, as a nonprofit fundraiser.

Berger
is self-assured, but she says being jobless for nearly a year has
rattled her. So, she says, she's willing to try something new: "If
there's something out there that can help, I think the environment out
there is really bad. I have never in my entire life had trouble getting
a job like this - ever."

So Berger went to a job center in
Manhattan. After meeting with employment counselor Emily Aponte, she
sends off her resume. Five minutes later, Aponte announces that a reply
has come in by e-mail: 15 job matches were generated by Berger's resume.

Assistance From An Algorithm

The
listings for Berger were selected from the state job bank by a computer
running a complex mathematical formula, or algorithm. These kinds of
equations are also the key element behind Google's Internet search
results, and the movie recommendations made by Netflix.

Matt Sigelman, the chief executive officer of Burning Glass,
a Boston company that developed the job search formula that Berger
tested, says the beauty of algorithms is that they see patterns.

"It's
actually studying how real people - by the tens of millions - get the
jobs that they move into," Sigelman says. "The technology is designed
to learn from past patterns of placement."

For the user, it's different from a keyword job search on Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com,
because the algorithm actually registers whole sentences from resumes.
Sigelman says this program mimics the human activity of reading and
digesting information. Coca-Cola, Accenture, and Google are some of
Burning Glass' clients - a list that now includes the state of New York.

But in the case of New York, the program is being used on behalf of job seekers - people like Berger.

Mixed Results

She
isn't overly impressed with the jobs the algorithm recommends. Only one
opportunity really interests her - the director of strategic planning
at a sports public relations company. The description says this
position is "nontraditional."

"Yeah, I like that because they might then consider a nontraditional candidate," she says.

"And it might be a little bit more interesting," Aponte responds.

Berger
also likes the sound of the position because it reports to the managing
partner. "It does what I like doing best in the corporate world, which
is coming up with a strategic plan," she says.

Berger says she'll
probably apply. And she did learn something: If she wants to work at a
nonprofit organization, she needs to beef up that part of her resume.

"It's
highlighting much more of what I used to do versus what I want to do,"
Berger says. "And that's the biggest thing I think I've learned."

New
York is trying job-seeker algorithms as a one-year pilot program. If
enough people say they got something out of it, the state labor
department says it will make the program permanent.