Sometimes, the use of profiling and big data on the web can be kind of creepy. Like this morning when I happened to search some news about a class action suit against Coach for demanding customers’ email addresses. Googled “Coach lawsuit” and followed a link to an ABC Local News article, and there was an ad for hot tub chemicals.
How on earth did ABC News know that I have been spending the last 5 weeks trying to figure out what combination of chlorine, sanitizers, calcium, acid and alkaline would stop the water from being vivid green?
Rather eerie.
Which is why I don’t fear putting my details into LinkedIn Because, when LinkedIn emails me a weekly update of jobs I might be interested in, the list includes:
General Manager, La Fiesta Mexican Restaurant
General Manager, Revolution Foods, San Francisco
Managing Director, Burberry Store San Francisco
VP Business Development, Lee Hecht Harrison (talent management/HR consultants)
General Manager, Einstein Noah Restaurant Group
Federal Sales Manager, Tableau Software, Washington DC
After all, I have merely provided complete details about my 27 year career in the software business, selling, managing organizations in database and mobile software development. But perhaps I’m underestimating LinkedIn. I may be thinking that they are keying in on my title “General Manager,” and trying to match jobs to that.
In fact, it may be that their algorithms are super sophisticated. They have figured out that someone in senior management at a software company has ideal skills to run a 250 seat restaurant, delivering nearly a thousand meals a day, with plates of perfectly cooked food arriving at the same time for every person at each table, the kitchen not running out of ingredients while staying on-budget, all while keeping rates of food poisoning at relatively low levels.
Yeah, I’d be a perfect fit.
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