eHarmony Moves Into Recruiting Business

Yes, you read that right. eHarmony, the online dating website, announced that it will expand into the recruiting space before the end of the calendar year. Huh? Apparently, the company will pair people to people just as it does in dating. Grant Langston, the company's VP of customer experience, told Inc., "When people meet in a bar they evaluate these four to five superficial data points—is the other person attractive, are they a good conversationist, what's their job, what's their socioeconomic status—and then decide whether or not to ride off into the sunset." He added, "This is the same thing that's happening in the hiring world: employers just evaluate these typical four to five superficial traits and make their hire." Although eHarmony hasn't made the big reveal as to how the matchmaking will work, we do know this: They'll match supervisors with potential employees based on personalities, work habits, hobbies and other things. Maybe they're onto something? Jon Osborne, VP of research at Staffing Industry Analysts, indicated, "In the placement world, employers look for three things in a candidate: can they do the work, will they do the work, and can you stand them doing the work. From sites like Monster and LinkedIn you can figure out the first two, but not the third." In fact, research shows personality matching has already entered the business world. The American Sociological Review published a study in December based on results discovered by the Kellogg School of Management. Turns out, hiring managers evaluate candidates they think could be "enjoyable playmates." That is, the cultural fit was defined as how well interviewers believed a candidate would fit in with the ethos and colleagues. As for one of the most important aspects factoring into hiring, well you can pretty much guess the cultural fit trumped technical skills and experience. Everyone in the study revealed it was one of the top three most important criteria used when assessing candidates and better yet, more than 50 percent of participants mentioned it was the most important one.

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eHarmony Moves Into Recruiting Business

Vicki Salemi

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Vicki Salemi