LinkedIn API for a Recruiting Tool
I was asked today to look at the LinkedIn API to see if I could access the data at LinkedIn to make an advanced recruiting tool for the Recruiters here at The Shop. The idea was to take a resume we received, match it to a LinkedIn profile (I'd venture that 90%+ of them are there), and then use advanced analytics to rate the prospective resumes for potential success at this job.
It's an interesting idea. The real advantage for LinkedIn is that companies like ours pays several thousand dollars a month to have access. With this kind of tool, that same data could be used to classify candidates by the data they have entered, and then use a nice predictive model to say who is most likely to succeed. It's simple feedback.
We take everyone that's been successful at this company. Reference their LinkedIn profiles for the training data, and then use any and all reviews to say which of these people are likely to be the successful ones - based on all the classified data that's on LinkedIn.
It's kinda neat. We don't have to wonder what factor(s) matter most - we can get all that LinkedIn has in their API, and then use the success factor - say a 1 - 5 rating as the outcome, and then train away. After that, every submitted resume can run through the trained net, and come up with a score and a confidence number. Pretty simple.
It's not meant to be fool-proof, but when you have a ton of openings, it's nice to be able to have something that whittles down the list of thousands to hundreds, or less - so that you can really focus on these people.
We'll see where it goes - if it goes anywhere.