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Work → In Progress: Finding A Job In The Matrix

Work → In Progress: Finding A Job In The Matrix
Carl-Johan Karlsson

In early civilizations, landing a job amounted to interning until your employer died. Fast-forward a few thousand years and fortunately, internships have gotten shorter ... and life expectancy has gotten longer! Still, job hunting has become a journey marked by alternating pulls of hope and hysteria. The swift ascension of global connectedness, Artificial Intelligence, the shifting nature of social norms are uprooting the way we're evaluated by recruiters.

This edition of Work → In Progress dives into how these transformations affect us today and what expectations we should have for recruitment in the future. In many countries, the classic curriculum vitae is becoming obsolete as recruiters use AI and virtual-reality simulations to evaluate candidates; in Russia, employers are shifting their focus from looks to merit; while in the U.S., "likability" might soon be more important than your masters' degree.​


WHAT IF AI DOESN'T LIKE ME? In Amsterdam, ketchup manufacturer Kraft Heinz relies on Artificial Intelligence to recruit, assess, hire, and manage their staff. Defenders of AI-based recruitment claim it removes human bias and promotes diversity, but others say it might just as well enhance existing biases or actively create new ones since the algorithms must be designed by human (usually male) developers. It's still probably too early to decide whether machines should be welcomed as gatekeepers to our dream jobs. Frida Polli, CEO of the AI-driven recruitment platform used by Heinz, puts it this way: "AI is like teenage sex, everyone says they're doing it, and nobody really knows what it is."​

STAT DU JOUR

Big Brother is watching, and we are starting to like it: In 2015, only 30% of companies were using monitoring techniques to collect data on how employees spend their time at work, reports Workplace Intelligence. That number is expected to grow to 80% in 2020. Today, 30% of people say they are comfortable with having their email monitored by employers, up from 10% in 2015.

BIG OR THICK, OR BOTH? Perhaps the way to a bias-free recruitment process is to merge artificial and human intelligence. Big data can provide real-time information on consumer and social trends, but a deeper social analysis would require adding "thick data" — or information derived from human behavior. Diego Fuentes dives into these two data types in Santiago-based America Economia, and Worldcrunch has the full article here in English.

NO RESUMES NEEDED! In addition to the new challenge of outfoxing algorithms, your future career might ultimately depend on a much more basic standard: whether people like you. Psychologist Dawn Graham writes in Forbeson the topic of "likability," which many believe is an innate quality. Yet Graham gives some practical advice on how to raise your likability quotient during a job interview:

1: Be Human! A big part of the interview is evaluating if you're a good fit for the team. That isn't something you can fake ... Prepare the best you can, and then be yourself.

2: Know Your Audience. In order to sell the product (which is you), it's critical to know what's important to the buyer.

RUSSIAN BEAUTYA study found that the number of employers in Russia who saw appearance as an important recruitment factor has fallen from 82% to 66% over the last decade, reports Rossiyskaya Gazeta. While many in the looks-conscious country may still airbrush their LinkedIn photo, the study found that employees now perceive looks as less important in career advancement, down from 84% to 60% over the same period.

ODD JOB

GREEN-COLLAR JOBS IN ARGENTINAA more sustainable economy has created a new workforce in advanced fields like electricity generation, transportation and energy storage. However, not all green-collar jobs require a master's degree. In Argentina, more than 150,000 people work with recovering recyclable materials in urban centers or at garbage dumps, reports La Nacion. Under the banner of "inclusive recycling," many of the workers are organizing in cooperatives to promote social security. On average, every worker recovers about 100 kilos of waste per day — the equivalent of what is generated by 100 people.

FUTURE OF WORK, FLASHBACK

How far is it from New York to Buffalo? Why is cast iron called pig iron? What country produce the finest china?

You don't know?! Well, then we regret to inform you that Thomas Edison wouldn't have hired you. A century ago, Edison pioneered the employment form, with his 146-question quiz for prospective employees at his power plant. In 1921, the New York Times revealed the quiz, which became a national topic of controversy. Reporters even took the test to Albert Einstein who flunked for not knowing the exact speed of sound … Duh. Trivia masochists can take the test, republished here on Gizmodo. And we'll leave it to the AI developers to feed Edison's data into their next algorithm!

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Future

Life On "Mars": With The Teams Simulating Space Missions Under A Dome

A niche research community plays out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another planet.

Photo of a person in a space suit walking toward the ​Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah

At the Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah

Sarah Scoles

In November 2022, Tara Sweeney’s plane landed on Thwaites Glacier, a 74,000-square-mile mass of frozen water in West Antarctica. She arrived with an international research team to study the glacier’s geology and ice fabric, and how its ice melt might contribute to sea level rise. But while near Earth’s southernmost point, Sweeney kept thinking about the moon.

“It felt every bit of what I think it will feel like being a space explorer,” said Sweeney, a former Air Force officer who’s now working on a doctorate in lunar geology at the University of Texas at El Paso. “You have all of these resources, and you get to be the one to go out and do the exploring and do the science. And that was really spectacular.”

That similarity is why space scientists study the physiology and psychology of people living in Antarctic and other remote outposts: For around 25 years, people have played out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another world. Polar explorers are, in a way, analogous to astronauts who land on alien planets. And while Sweeney wasn’t technically on an “analog astronaut” mission — her primary objective being the geological exploration of Earth — her days played out much the same as a space explorer’s might.

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