Google and "Big Data"

The article “In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal” contains information which will either thrill or discourage the reader. Composed of an interview with Laszlo Bock, a senior vice president of people operations at Google, the article reveals changing attitudes towards leadership qualities in job applicants and a shift in the perception of academic work. While the opinions and claims made by Bock are relative to the inner-operations at Google, they certainly carry weight and will no doubt become ever-increasing in other fields and industries. The question, then, is what the interview with Bock contains, and how one should feel about it. Certainly the ideas contained in the article reveal an intriguing progression in work management, but they also hint at the uncomfortable future of education and work.

            “Big Data” is brought up throughout the interview, which is essentially a compilation of information recorded by a company or organization that can be utilized in various ways (if I comprehend fully). Big Data is not unique to Google but is instead found across many areas and entities, especially business. Within the context of the interview, Big Data is referenced as the information which Google pulls from in analyzing applicants, workers, efficiency, and so on. The merits of a manager can be somewhat quantified by examining and evaluating worker opinions and quality of work. Yet the interview brings up the point that statistics and generalized data do not full help measure leadership qualities. Leadership is deemed “a more ambiguous and amorphous set of characteristics”, and while certain attributes like consistency may be measure, a touch of human insight is necessary.

            One cannot doubt the validity of certain sets of data and analysis. If a manager is poor at his job, there will be noticeable deficiencies in his region and the people he manages. When the feedback of employees regarding a manager is collected and compiled, there will likely be indications of a person’s effectiveness, ability, or character. But to break down human behavior into a faceless wall of information is not exactly a comforting or endearing concept. Big Data is useful, but care must be taken not to exclude those personal and, well, human qualities that might escape organized recordings and measurements.

            Still, data should be utilized, and will be increasingly useful as time progresses. The closing questions of the interview allude to this progression, as academics and the correlation between assets like G.P.A and test scores and compared against the ability of Google employees. When Bock states that “we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring”, a little bit of nervousness creeps into my mind. This is not because I rely on a G.P.A for self-assessment, but because there is a discrepancy between what the job market is starting to favor and what education is trying to instill. The remark that people who succeed in academic environments are “finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment” is worrisome to an individual who succeeds in an academic environment. The statements expressed in the article are born of data relating academics to performance while working under Google, and a lack of correlation between the two. Notions of real-world skills and personal development are brought up to explain how useless something like a G.P.A is. Bock’s claims within the article spark a curiosity within me regarding the future of career application and formal schooling, while at the same time I am both intrigued and unsettled by the notion of Big Data, and wish to see how comprehensive it can truly become.

link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=all