Naar aanleiding van mijn artikel Het ware gezicht van HR tech: online banen zoeken wordt levensgevaarlijk van 6 januari over een LinkedIn braindump van Bill Boorman (We Broke Hiring. Now We’re Automating the Damage) kreeg ik de volgende reactie op RecruitmentMatters van Boorman. Om hem het leven makkelijker te maken heb ik besloten om op zijn reactie in het Engels te reageren. Ik annoteer zijn reactie hieronder. Laten we beginnen:

Mark,
Thanks for your response. I thought it worth giving you access to some of my data, in return for being able to comment. Seems a reasonable transaction with you, your hosts and other third parties.

MD: I’m not sure what you are referring to but my response is solely based on your LinkedIn braindump: We Broke Hiring. Now We’re Automating the Damage, which means free access for every LinkedIn ‘member’. BTW my first name is Marc.

We continue:

I am hoping you can help me out by directing me to any ATS using IndeedApply, Seek or Stepstone that does not have an explicit opt in and transparency over what data is getting shared, in compliance with GDPR. Your post indicates these exist, I havent found them, but maybe you have.

MD: Boorman and I discussed this on December 16th via LinkedIn where I gave Boorman the following example:

ATS’s play an enabling role, like ATS Collage who states that company clients are automatically opted-in to the Indeed distribution API. I know not all ATS’s do this but I’m really curious about how many ATS’s do this. And then there is the question: Why? Why would an ATS do this? Does Indeed incentivy this? And subsequently, if the ATS user (the employer) doesn’t know, how would a job seeker know? These are muddy waters while job seeker privacy is compromised. Ergo: Enshittification. The Enshittification mention is a mention to Cory Doctorow’s book Enshittification. When everything Suddenly Got Worse and What t Do About It. Mandatory reading for any recruitment expert.

MD: To add to this, I have send queries to Indeed, Stepstone, Seek, Totaljobs and Linkedin to try and clarify this. For reasons unknown to me there seems to be a problem (sofar) in answering my questions with each of these HR Tech companies. A future article will deal with this.

MD: We gaan verder met de reactie van Boorman:

I understand the position you are taking on disposition data sharing. Without this, algorithms can not be trained, and outcome based pricing is not possible. I would argue the job boards do have some ownership of the data up to the point of apply. It is employers who are driving the market to outcome based pricing. That means it is employers who are driving this change. Outcome based pricing like CPA+ is not possible without disposition data. The alternative is to cease the move to what the employers want.

MD: I want to paraphrase an earlier answer by you (see above) : I am hoping you can help me out by directing me to employers who are driving the collection of disposition data. I’m also very curious why (EU) employers want to break the law (GDPR/AVG) for better outcomes. Isn’t it the HR Tech companies driving this change, predominantly because they suck at delivering relevant candidates?

Let’s continue:

I think we can all agree that algorithms can not be trained or improved without access to disposition data. I hear your argument that the improvement is not worth trading data for. I think that should be an individuals choice, rather than thought leaders and commentators. If there is big push back, we get the answer. If not, we get the answer.

MD: You heard wrong. This isn’t trading data, this is breaking the law.

And lastly:
We could decide hiring works as it is, and halt progress through technology, that just feels like we are living in a luddite past. I prefer cautous progress, and leaving the choice firmly with the job seekers.

You are not a champion for job seekers but a champion for the law breaking HR Tech industry. Ever heard the story of the wolf and the little pigs?