Browser Choice May Affect Your Job Prospects

krygny sends this quote from The Economist: "The internet browser you are using to read this blog post could help a potential employer decide whether or not you would do well at a job. How might your choice of browser affect your job prospects? When choosing among job applicants, employers may be swayed by a range of factors, knowingly and unknowingly. ... Evolv, a company that monitors recruitment and workplace data, has suggested that there are better ways to identify the right candidate for job. ... Among other things, its analysis found that those applicants who have bothered to install new web browsers on their computers (such as Mozilla's Firefox or Google's Chrome) perform better and stay in their posts for 15% longer, on average."

Correlation is not causation

[dkleinsc]

Specifically, both being able to install a browser and staying in your job longer could easily be caused by a third factor, namely not being an idiot.

Re:Correlation is not causation

[The MAZZTer]

Ah, but in this case, correlation is what the employer cares about.

Honest salesmen less effective

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article "A study of 20,000 workers showed that more honest people tend to perform better and stay at the job longer. For some reason, however, they make less effective salespeople."

Anybody surprised by this?

sure probably a correlation

[shadowrat]

But now that this is out, people looking for jobs are all going to switch to firefox and chrome. They probably still won't have whatever quality makes them good at the job, but they will have lived up to the expectations of the HR algorithm.

Re:Loaded language?

[danbob999]

Did you really feel you had to defend yourself?

Re:And if you run Lynx

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I bet you still have to submit your resume as a .doc file, though.

Re:subversive

[MickyTheIdiot]

Nothing. Because you couldn't have gotten your online application put into their proprietary system.

Re:Loaded language?

[MickyTheIdiot]

He won't... that's the point.

This is just another arbitrary way to "weed out" candidates. You wonder why the screeching that "the U.S. has no qualified candidates" to do jobs... this is one of the reasons. We have H.R. people that roundfile applications because of their own lack of knowledge.

Re:Correlation is not causation

[Brucelet]

Correlation doesn't need to imply causation for this to be relevant. It still means the employer is better off picking candidates who use a newer browser, and that job seekers are still better off using new browsers to signal that they're worthwhile, even if neither has causative evidence for why.

Re:Loaded language?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you really feel you had to defend yourself?

Well, considering that the article is basically saying that anybody using IE should have their resume tossed in the trash, and a good number of the resume submission sites for employers are all fucked up and only work properly in IE... ya, he did need to defend himself.

I run three browsers- Firefox, Chrome, and IE. I use each one in different situations, for different reasons.

in other words, fuck off.

And when you get the job...

[6Yankee]

...you find yourself stuck with IE6 on XP, and installing Firefox is a sackable offence.

Re:Loaded language?

[trum4n]

I wouldn't hire you because you are a Mac user. I need people with morals and values, and a concept of the value of a dollar. Why would you buy what is effectively just a dell for 3x the money with near useless software? Not what I'm looking for.

Re:Correlation is not causation

[Anonymous Coward]

if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.

as someone below points out, correlation is more significant than causation in the real world.

Re:Loaded language?

[RoboRay]

You get 100+ qualified applicants for every job. Of course statistics are going to be used to narrow down the pool. If you share a characteristic with others that have a higher than average chance of being problematic, that is going to be a factor of whether or not you get considered for the position. If they do find another qualified candidate without any of those factors, it doesn't matter to them that you are also qualified. If they don't find another one, you're going to get a call anyway.

They simply do not have the time, opportunity, or justification to hold a magnifying glass up to every candidate that applies for a position. It's up to you to ensure that there are no silly reasons for them to discard you out of hand.

Re:Loaded language?

[RoboRay]

That said, though... this one is a little silly on their part.

Re:Loaded language?

[Shrike Valeo]

They simply do not have the time, opportunity, or justification...

THIS. THIS A THOUSAND TIMES

If someone doesn't know many employers use arbitrary methods to weed out hundreds, even thousands of applicants to something manageable that they can look at properly, they need to come back to reality

From a single typo to Times New Roman font, anything that has (and some have that no) statistical value (like, say, literally taking the second half of applicants and rejecting them), can and will be used. Only now I'm seeing companies use the "if you don't hear from us in X days, you were unsuccessful/ignored" in response to how bad it is you don't even get a 'no' these days

As long as applying will be as simple as emailing a CV/resumé/application and a human has to look at it for a response, there will be a huge bottleneck in business resources in responding to them and will do things like this

Re:Loaded language?

[boristdog]

I take it you haven't dealt much with the type of people most companies hire for the Personnel department.

From the 3 gov't agencies, two non-profits and half-dozen private companies I've worked for as evidence, it seems that looking good in a tight dress is the major qualification.

Whose luck are you measuring?

[Dareth]

Whose luck are you measuring? How do you know you are not throwing away your best candidate(s) because you are unlucky?

Re:Loaded language?

[tehcyder]

Sometimes it is rather arbitrary, such as: lives too far away, or uses an unprofessional sounding email address (for example: [e-mail])

Is it the hotkitty or the aol part you find most unprofessional?

Not representative of my experience!

[Bearhouse]

Don't judge a book by its cover.
Here in Europe we've got plenty of women in all roles that look good in tight dresses, and most of them, including in HR, are also pretty good at their jobs. In HR, they're frequently better than men, (something to do with superior organisational and communication skills, I understand).

In my job, I've frequently had to deal with HR people for hiring. The main reason I've seen that stop them from recruiting good talent is the totally crap job/person descriptions they get from managers. The absolutely best results I ever got was when working with a stunningly-attractive lady who also had the brains to match. She asked me clear, precise questions about the requirements, which we formalised using standard tools her department had created, and within a few days her team had started to present pre-screened candidates, all of whom were a good fit for the job. This was my introduction to competency-based management, which works well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competency-based_management [wikipedia.org]

At the same time, others in the organisation were complaining about their inability to recruit. Maybe if they'd stopped staring at her bust, and worked as professionals instead, they'd have got better results?