hacking hr: a smarter approach to assessment in the digital age

A Smarter Approach to Assessment in the Digital Age

Vesselin PopovDubai 2014

@VessPopov

Hacking HR

vp288@cam.ac.uk

?

Conservative & traditional

Spontaneous & impulsive

Shy & reserved

Competitive &working alone

Emotional & Easily Stressed

Liberal & artistic

Extraverted & Outgoing

Laid back& relaxed

Well organized & hard working

Team working & trusting

BIG5 PERSONALITY Excessive Drinking

Cross-country Skiing

..…………………………….

…………………………………

Behaviour

vp288@cam.ac.uk

§  Psychological inference can make your data human

§  Digital footprints of behaviour can reveal the psychological make-up of your organisation

§  Doing this in partnership with your employees can bring engagement into the information age

✓

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Engagement in the information age requires

Reciprocity

Trust

Personalisation

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Engagement in the information age requires

Reciprocity = 2-way assessment

Trust = tackling job market barriers

Personalisation = target & tailor

vp288@cam.ac.uk

@VessPopov

Reciprocity

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Challenge:

How do you measure psychological traits to encourage engagement in practice?

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Traditional methods (need hacking)

§  Expensive

§  Slow

§  Small and biased samples

§  Invalid methodology

§  Frustrating for participant

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Big Data Psychology

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Our Engagement Challenge:

How to motivate research participants to answer honestly?

vp288@cam.ac.uk

www.myPersonality.org

Facebook app launched in 2007

Users could take valid psychometric assessments and get feedback for free (= reciprocity)

We asked people to opt in to share data

High quality information:-  Records of actual behaviour -  Honest, open, motivated respondents-  Quality better than in the lab

vp288@cam.ac.uk

www.myPersonality.org

Facebook app launched in 2007

Users could take valid psychometric assessments and get feedback for free (= reciprocity)

We asked people to opt in to share data

High quality information:-  Records of actual behaviour -  Honest, open, motivated respondents-  Quality better than in the lab

100 question IPIP version of NEO-PI-R Traits

Delay Discounting

336 question IPIP version of NEO-PI-R Facets

Body Consciousness

Satisfaction with life scale Moral Foundations

Rust’s vocational personality MUSIC Personality

Sensational interests questionnaire

Empathy Quotient Scale

Self-Monitoring Barratt Impulsivity Scale

Pennebaker Inventory of Limbic Languidness (PILL)

Relationship Scales Questionnaire

Job Self-Efficacy Scale My memories of upbringing (EMBU)

Forms of self-criticizing/attacking and self-reassurance scale (FSCS)

Centre for Epidemiological Study Depression Scale (CES-D)

Schwartz's Values Survey Passion Towards Work Scale

Pregnancy Explorer Thing-Person Orientation

Volunteer Personality Scale IQ test on myIQ

vp288@cam.ac.uk

www.myPersonality.org

Facebook app launched in 2007

Users could take valid psychometric assessments and get feedback for free (= reciprocity)

We asked people to opt in to share data

High quality information:-  Records of actual behaviour -  Honest, open, motivated respondents-  Quality better than in the lab

Gender Education (school/degree)

Date of Birth Relationship status

Religion Likes

Ø  BooksØ  MoviesØ  TV ShowsØ  Music and Last.fm DataØ  Activities

Political views Sexuality

Geographical location

Ø  CountryØ  StateØ  City

Family

Work (company/position) Photo tags

Wall posts Status updates

vp288@cam.ac.uk

39 peer-reviewed publications

Over 6 million unique participants

Open-sourced to 150 academic collaborators

The largest and most rich social science database in history

Secure, privacy-preserving format

Accurate prediction published in PNAS

Responses to 25-30 validated assessments

vp288@cam.ac.uk

“digital records of behavior can be used to automatically and accurately predict a range of highly sensitive personal attributes”

March 2013

vp288@cam.ac.uk

We can predict these traits from digital footprints

Political Views Religious Views Use of Language

Intelligence Life SatisfactionBIG5 Personality

Age

Gender

Ethnic Origin

Sexual orientation

Relationship status

Concentration/Major

Friendship network density

Parents’ relationship status

Use of addictive substancesvp288@cam.ac.uk

One-click personality prediction

Uses only Facebook Likes

Predicts your friends’ personalities

www.YouAreWhatYouLike.com

vp288@cam.ac.uk

@ApplyMagicSauce

Challenge:

How do you measure psychological traits to encourage engagement in practice?

Hack:

Think outside the box and design for reciprocity

vp288@cam.ac.uk

@VessPopov

Trust

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Challenge:

How do you create an environment in which employees self-motivate to exceed expectations?

vp288@cam.ac.uk

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Barriers to engagement

Building trust

Low mobility

Low performance

Discrimination

Salaries

Low person-job fit

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Assess ability

Match task

Build this feedback loop into HR strategy

Overcome the barriers to employee engagement in a sustainable way

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Assess ability

Match task

Shorter engagements

Flexible, parallel working

Motivation to self-improve

In-built reputation system

Objective ability assessment

Crowd-sourced pay grades

Self-matching to jobs

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Challenge:

How do you create an environment in which employees self-motivate to exceed expectations?

Hack:

Use agile feedback loops based on objective ability assessment

vp288@cam.ac.uk

@VessPopov

Personalisation

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Challenge:

How do you achieve both engagement on the individual level and a supportive culture on the company level?

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Reach the right candidates in the first place

traditional

organised

competitive

high IQ

Why not target a job advert so that only candidates with the optimum psychological profile see it in the first place?

vp288@cam.ac.uk

We can predict these traits from digital footprints

Political Views Religious Views Use of Language

Intelligence Life SatisfactionBIG5 Personality

Age

Gender

Ethnic Origin

Sexual orientation

Relationship status

Concentration/Major

Friendship network density

Parents’ relationship status

Use of addictive substancesvp288@cam.ac.uk

Language    

Speak the Language of

Engagement

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Connecting Psychology & LanguagePersonality, Gender, and Age in the Language of Social Media: The Open-Vocabulary Approach by Schwartz, H. A., Eichstaedt, J.C., Kern, M.L., Dziurzynski, L., Ramones, S.M., Agrawal, M. Shah, A., Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D.S., Seligman, M.E.P, Ungar, L.H. PLoS ONE, 2013.

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Challenge:

How do you achieve both a supportive culture on the company level and engagement on the individual level?

Hack:

Target external communications and tailor internal language to the psychological profile of your audience

vp288@cam.ac.uk

HR Hacks: What Engagement Should Look Like

ReciprocityThink outside the box and design for 2-way detective work

Trust Use agile feedback loops based on objective ability assessment

PersonalisationTarget content and tailor language by psychological profile

vp288@cam.ac.uk

Vesselin Popovvp288@cam.ac.uk

@VessPopovwww.applymagicsauce.com

www.youarewhatyoulike.comwww.tests.e-psychometrics.com

Thank you