Decoding Talent: How AI and Big Data Can Solve Your Company's People Puzzle

by Eric Sydell, Mike Hudy, Michael Ashley

Harness the power of artificial intelligence in hiring

The typical hiring process is fraught with complexity, inefficiency, and bias and often shuts out the most talented candidates. Decoding Talent: How AI and Big Data Can Solve Your Company’s People Puzzle makes the case for using complex advanced technologies to move past these problems toward effortless optimal candidate decisions.

AI experts Eric Sydell, Mike Hudy, and Michael Ashley explain why the traditional resume-based process is out of date, why hiring is difficult, the cost of bad people decisions, how bias interferes in hiring practices, and how AI can address these problems.

Decoding Talent reveals that using AI in hiring doesn’t require your human resource professionals to unlearn and relearn their craft; rather, machine learning can complement their skills by consolidating and analyzing data to recommend actions. Imagine a world in which you didn’t have to wonder:


Who is the best candidate for the job?
What is the return on investment of our hiring process?
Is our hiring process fair and equitable?
Is our human talent deployed optimally across our organization?
What can human resources do to better drive business outcomes for our company?
Is our candidate experience adding value to our brand?

Incorporating scientifically based hiring can make this world a reality, benefiting both your company and the candidates for hire.

Genres: Nonfiction

232 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 15, 2022

Reviews

[James (JD) Dittes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "people puzzle" Sydell describes inDecoding Talent is spelled out easily: it costs money for companies to recruit and train employees, a number he puts at $20,000.

With this much on the line, companies cannot afford to hire the wrong person or mis-place a new hire into a role that doesn't suit them. This is the rationale for the "AI and Big Data" that Sydell and his company place at their clients' disposal.

Sydell uses cases studies to show how data is making the job of HR more effective. His company has developed pre-employment tests and virtual job simulations to help applicants and new employees demonstrate their effectiveness. It's all in the service of finding the right "fit" to benefit both employer and employee.

This is an excellent resource for human resource staff: a peek into the future with its feet firmly grounded in tested, present-day methods.

[Nette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decoding Talent talks about the archaic use of HR and its hiring process, of the countless data the hiring department has but does not know how to use the information to benefit the company they work for. How updating such a system, by using AI in an unbiased safe way, can help decrease the employee turnover rate. Eric Sydell, Mike Hudy, and Michael Ashley use examples to make their point so clear, the facts are all in Decoding Talent, to finding employees that may not fit a mold, but that it's time to break the "mold" in order to advance with the rest of departments that do use innovative and even use AI in their day-to-day. The hiring process should be refreshed and brought up to date. Decoding Talent helped me understand why looking for a job is as taxing to someone as I had experienced it, the job seekers aren't the problem, the hiring process is just outdated, and with this book, hopefully, more companies or more Human Resources personnel can seek to update their systems.

[Abby Epplett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This quick and easy-to-understand book gives an overview of AI, current hiring practices and problems, and how future businesses might put it all together. The authors have a keen understanding of HR woes and Artificial Intelligence, citing multiple sources and providing brief anecdotes. I wish the book present a few more practical solutions aimed at small businesses, as the focuses seems to be on larger companies.

[Alex Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking to buy custom research paper and then a guy suggest this book and it's going to be done. The best part of the book is an article in fast company with the catchy title"why we hate HR" which encapsulates what a lot of people feel about HR.

[Alexandru Covtun · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little bit too techie but I liked it. The book has some good ideas in case you are into AI stuff.

[Brian Penoyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The views expressed herein are mine alone and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Commandant or of the United States Coast Guard.

This is a great, short and plain language discussion of the shift from a traditional Human Resources approach to the workforce toward a true talent management approach. I encourage every senior leader to read something like this - just to become fluent in the concepts at a survey level.