4: Mining Digital Talent Signals

What do you think tells or reveals the most about you, your carefully curated resumé, or your social media feed? I think we all would agree that the latter would give any stranger an accurate picture of your unique characteristics, life history, and talents. If I know that you spend a lot of time browsing and contributing to Wikipedia, as opposed to if I know you spend your time bouncing from one influencer to the next on YouTube, I can make a safe bet that you're intellectually curious.

It is no longer insightful or profound to say that the things we consume, create, and engage with online are accurate representations of our identity. In fact, scientists have long known that there is a strong relationship between our identity and consumer behavior; the things we buy, places we visit, and how we decorate our homes reveal a remarkable amount about us (Gosling, Ko, Mannarelli, & Morris, 2002; Kim & Song, 2014; Sandy, Gosling, & Durant, 2013). As connected technologies continue to become deeply integrated into our lives, the same is true for our online behavior (Kosinski, Stillwell, & Graepel, 2013).