How the heck I missed the Monster news last week, I have no idea. Monster bought job matching technology/ATS play Trovix for $72.5 million. Monster's struggles have been well-publicized, but the purchase of Trovix was somewhat of a surprise – a comical surprise to some like Cheezhead. Interestingly I've heard no one talk of Trovix of late. Nada.According to Darko Dejanovic, Monster's Global Chief Information Officer and Head of Product, "The implementation of this technology will allow Monster to provide unparalleled match capabilities, taking us beyond keyword search into contextual search."
But this post isn't about Monster; it's about how the purchase of Trovix opens up the market for "artificial intelligence" job matching companies and is a validation of sorts that the technology may be finally coming into its own.
I had the opportunity to speak with Jindrich Liska, PhD, yesterday, CEO of Vitruva, a second-generation career website powered by an artificial intelligence job matching engine for employers, recruiters and job candidates.
"Keyword search in the job market domain is very inefficient," Jindrich told me. "The new artificial intelligence matching systems eliminate for employers the onerous process of sifting through hundreds of unqualified resumes and save job seekers hours and days of browsing thousands of irrelevant job listings."
Semantic search technology has the ability to analyze resumes and job descriptions by focusing on key attributes such as skills, work history, and education to provide meaningful search results – thus giving a more accurate match to a job as opposed to matching straight keywords from a resume to a job description.
Vitruva has developed an artificial-intelligence engine that identifies only the most relevant jobs based on a user's professional profile. This ensures a high degree of success and satisfaction for both the employer and the job seeker. They do not use keywords because keyword searching produces too many irrelevant listings that have nothing to do with the job seeker's skills and desires.
It may sound like science fiction still to some in recruitment, but Burning Glass has been doing this for years. When I was with (now defunct) Tapestry.net from 1999-2001, we partnered with Burning Glass for our job matching technology that we touted as "artificial intelligence". The science behind the service worked; the science fiction did not. We described it as a 3-D matching cloud of all aspects of experience and skill sets, simultaneously weighing them all against a particular job description, not the linear and literal matching on which keyword search operates.
I haven't signed up for a Vitruva account yet, but I will soon. But there are plenty who have had mostly good things to say.
What's also refreshing about Vitruva is the thought put into their name and brand:
Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting is a study of the proportions of the man and his relationship to the universe as a whole. Vitruva's use of the name symbolizes our mission to free people of tedious job searching, by finding the best fit between the proportions (qualifications and preferences) of a job seeker and a job opportunity.
I dig that stuff. Some would argue that falls into the what-the-heck-name-is-that category like Taleo, but we wish them the best of luck nonetheless. The Trovix purchase will also help other similar firms as well like Jobfox, itzBig and RealMatch – but it's Vitruva's model that seems to be the most promising one of the lot for speed and ease.
Labels: artificial intelligence, Cheezhead, Monster, semantic search, Trovix, Vitruva