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Jonathan Ciampi

On a conceptual basis, job keywords make sense to everyone. However, when you dig into the details of how computers identify keywords, many challenges arise. I am going to explain the logic to clear up the confusion and hopefully start an ongoing discussion about keywords. I will use laymen terms to remove the complexity of understanding computational linguistics.Computers Look for Different Keywords than HumansAs for the job keywords, lots of advice suggests focusing on industry keywords and functional keywords. While this advice is still valid, a new era has emerged in which computers look for keywords in a résumé before a hiring manager reviews a résumé.Unlike humans, computers do not try to decipher meaning from individual words (e.g., does “manage” mean managing people or managing products). Instead, they apply complex mathematical formulas to determine the words and phrases that can precisely and compactly represent the content of the job description. Then, these phrases are searched for in the résumé. Based on the search, a complex ranking system is used to compare one candidate’s résumé to another’s. Complex? Yes!I think a good example of how a computer identifies keywords is to use a sample job description. Let’s focus on just three lines of the Requirements section:Requirements:Bachelors degree in a relevant scientific discipline or equivalent.At least 2 years of relevant experience as a CRA in the biotech / pharmaceutical industry.3+ years CRA experience is preferred; Knowledge of GCP and ICH guidelines.Computers identify keywords by determining how often phrases are used among other job descriptions, then the computer looks for the phrases in a candidate’s résumé and ranks the candidate based on the findings. To understand the process, we can break it into four parts.1. Identifying the Keyword PhrasesThe computers first begin by analyzing the job description to identify all the keyword phrases in the job description. What is a “phrase?” A “phrase” is one or more words in succession from the job description. Phrases can be single words like “CRA,” from our example, or longer strings of words like “Bachelors degree in a relevant scientific discipline.”2. Determine Frequency of the phrasesWith the phrases identified, next, the computer identifies how many times that phrase is found in all the other job descriptions. The more it is found, a higher score is assigned to the phrase. The less it is found, the lower the score. For instance, let’s look at the first two lines of our sample job description.Requirements:Bachelors degree in a relevant scientific discipline or equivalent.At least 2 years of relevant experience as a CRA in the biotech / pharmaceutical industry.If we had 10 other job descriptions and counted the frequency of the phrases, we might end up with something like this:PhraseFrequencyBachelors10Bachelors degree10Bachelors degree in10Bachelors degree in a8relevant10relevant scientific7relevant scientific discipline5relevant scientific discipline or equivalent4At10At least8At least 23At least 2 years3At least 2 years of3At least 2 years of3relevant10relevant experience10relevant experience as10relevant experience as a10CRA2CRA in1CRA in the1CRA in the biotech1CRA in the biotech pharmaceutical1 What the computer does is start with a word and counts its frequency (i.e., how many times was it found in all job descriptions). Then, it will add on additional words and get a count.Once the frequency is determined, then the computer decides what are the keywords for a job. With the information we have above, we could claim the words that show up less frequently are the most important phrases for this job, and the words that show up more frequently are too generic. For instance, if a phrase appears in 10 job descriptions, we may think this is not important (this is the case with “Bachelors degree”). However, the phrase “CRA in the biotech pharmaceutical” is very unique to this job. Therefore, we could assert “any phrase with a count of three or less is a keyword phrase.”But these don’t look like keywords. The reason it appears to be incomplete phrases or gibberish is due to the added words in the phrase that make it less frequent. The computer is not looking for grammatical or commonly used phrases. For example, you may believe “2 years of experience” is the keyword but a computer may say “At least 2 years of” is the keyword, because “2 years of experience” shows up in too many job descriptions.3. Searching Résumés for Keyword PhrasesOnce the computer has a set of keyword phrases, next it searches a résumé for the keywords. If it finds a match or partial match, it will give it a score. Let’s use “at least 2 years experience” as the keyword phrase. If the résumé had “I have more than 2 years experience in…”, we would get a partial match with “2 years experience” being the overlap. Changing tense of a word and/or adding or removing plurality or possession will result in getting a partial match. Partial matches are not bad. It is unlikely any résumé will match the job description exactly without copying it word for word. Therefore, the goal is to eliminate any missing keywords and fill your résumé with matched and partially matched keywords.4. Assigning a Résumé RankOnce the computer has a list of all the matched and partially matched keywords, the computer assigns a rank or value. The rank is weighted based on the matches and the frequency of the keyword phrase. A keyword phrase that is less frequently found will get a higher weight than a keyword phrase that is more frequently found. An exact match will get a higher weight than a partial match. Within the partial match, the closer to the exact phrase you can get, the higher the rank. The computer takes all of these into account and assigns a weighting.For every résumé that comes in, a rating can be assigned.Does it work?Using our example, let’s do a simple test to see if the process works. Let’s assume we get hundreds of résumés. If 10 résumés have “CRA” or “CRA in the biotech” versus 100 résumés that have “Bachelor’s Degree,” a hiring manager could quickly narrow the applicant list to just 10. While the hiring manager may miss out on a strong candidate who does not have this term, they do avoid having to read through hundreds of résumés. There are plenty of arguments on why this may not result in the best hiring decisions, but in today’s economy where employees are required to do more with less, these systems are here to stay.

Keys for Résumé Wordsmithing: Matching Keywords, Partial Keywords, and Keyword Logic

Innovation is increasingly viewed as the key to future success for today’s companies and as the engine that creates new businesses. Ample research bears this out, from a 2010 IBM survey of CEOs citing creativity as “the single most important leadership competency for enterprises seeking a path through … complexity” to a Conference Board report released in February 2015 that identified “creating cultures of innovation” as a key strategy to meet organizations’ top challenges. Research from Deloitte, PwC, and CapGemini, as well as numerous academic studies, affirm the need for innovation. But research also reveals a tough reality: most organizations are not good at innovation. Executives, managers, and OD and HR professionals are largely unsure how to drive innovation or foster the leadership skills needed to innovate. Organizations struggle in spite of efforts to foster innovation cultures and teach innovation processes or tactics. A 2014 survey by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) found a striking gap between need for innovation and the ability to deliver it. Nearly everyone who took part in CCL’s 500-person client panel said innovation is a key driver of success (94 percent), and 77 percent reported their organizations have made attempts to improve innovation. Even so, just 14 percent were confident about their organization’s ability to drive innovation effectively. Why do innovation efforts stall and innovative ideas die out? Innovation: A Leadership Challenge Business leaders often assume the goal of innovation is to generate ideas, when in fact almost all organizations are not short of ideas. Ideas are commonplace, but they require a problem in need of solving, and something must be done with them! Knowing what to do with ideas is the bigger challenge to effective innovation. Ideas don’t get aired, elevated, or sold well throughout the organization. They are not championed or pursued. They lose traction, don’t receive resources, or fail to make it to the right people or place in the organization. Typically, after an idea falls on deaf ears once or twice, the ideator gets the (usually unintended) message that no one is interested. This is a leadership challenge at all levels of the organization—and it’s a critical issue especially in the middle of organizations with department, functional, or divisional managers. A boss dismisses an idea or stifles conversation and exchange. One manager routinely shoots down ideas, because they don’t fit into his current priorities. Another’s personal resistance to change prevents him from welcoming innovation. Or the well-intending boss just can’t move it forward due to other work pressures. None of these innovation-killing behaviors is necessarily intentional. These leaders are charged with running the operations and getting results. They don’t know what to do with the ideas or solutions that fall outside their strategic priorities and operational status quo. So, understandably, innovation gets stuck in the middle. Leading From the Middle Leaders at different levels have different roles and responsibilities in leading innovation. The things an individual contributor should pay attention to are different than the focus of the executive team. This is obvious in other aspects of business, but is often overlooked when it comes to innovation. Individuals are responsible for ideation and creation. Their role is to seek and generate novel solutions and approaches, find sources of inspiration, push across boundaries, and participate on innovation teams. Team leaders or project managers must also be able to facilitate group innovation processes and seek resources from outside their unit. On the other end of the corporate structure, executive leadership is responsible for shaping culture and strategy so “new, different, and disruptive” ideas are supported throughout the organization. This involves modeling behavior and communicating the vision for innovation. Perhaps the hardest job is finding ways to stay connected and hear or see “unfiltered” concepts and ideas. Leaders in the middle—managers of units or functions or departments—are all managers of managers. They are the bridge between top leadership and the people who are close to customers, partners, and suppliers. They are immersed in the implementation of the work of the organization. Because of where they sit in the organization, they are a great source of innovation potential, if they can effectively navigate the tension between “status quo” and “doing something new.”The innovation responsibilities for leaders in the middle of the organization include:Supporting and protecting innovators from other parts of the organization: Creating a protective umbrella over their people to ensure that the discomfort, risk, and potential disruption of the innovation efforts don’t cause others to try to shut them down.  Building a case for grass-roots innovations: Ensuring due diligence in building a case for innovations, helping to define and communicate them effectively to different audiences, and being a champion of new ideas. Managing or initiating structural changes and changes to strategy to accommodate promising innovations: Managing the pipeline of new products, processes, and services. Handling conflicting demands for resources and obtaining resources. Setting the tone for innovation: Modeling behavior and driving communication that sets the tone and determines interest in and support for innovation.Facilitating constructive cooperation between groups working on similar opportunities: Working across organizational boundaries to connect ideas with ideas, ideas with people, and people with people; and knowing how to influence, connect, and collaborate with people who have different innovation styles or preferences. How to Foster Innovation Leadership Leaders must act in ways that promote and support innovation. People in learning and development functions can guide the process in a number of ways. First, remember that innovation skillsets, toolsets, and mindsets are not fixed. People from all walks of life can increase their ability to innovate and lead innovation. The research and our practice clearly shows that people can and do get better at the skills required for creative and innovative thinking. Second, be sure to look at the entire innovation equation. While middle managers are typically a neglected and important group, individuals and teams still need training and support to take on their innovation roles and responsibilities. The commitment of CEOs and other top leaders remains necessary to create cultures of innovation. Structures and policies (including offering training and factoring in innovation behaviors in talent management decisions) are also needed for innovation to become an organizational capability that fuels its future gains, goals, and dreams. Third, acknowledge the tension between innovation and operational efficiency. Organizations must balance managing current business with the countless ways they could create new opportunities. Often, promising new ideas are ignored or postponed due to the pace of daily operations and the pressure to hit short-term targets. But, innovation and operations can, and must, coexist. Leaders throughout the organization will benefit when they approach paradoxes, conflicting priorities, and competing interests from a polarity-thinking rather than problem-solving mindset. Fourth, emphasize the role of organizational bridge building. Leaders need to communicate, influence, and collaborate up and down the organization  chart; across the silos; among the different geographical locations; to other stakeholders in the organizational ecosystem; and to other demographic groups. Since innovation is a team sport, no one person, level, or function can launch an innovation in an organization. Mid-level leaders need help and the support of others to make innovation happen, which means stepping out of their territory and connecting with others to champion solutions. Finally, focus on innovation as a process. Innovation in organizations is not a random or unstructured activity. Innovation requires people with innovative mindsets working together towards a common target to understand and clarify the challenge, generate and refine ideas, develop solutions and plans, and implement the innovation to realize a quantifiable gain. These four steps—Explore, Ideate, Craft, and Implement—focused on a target make up CCL’s “Targeted Innovation” process and can be applied to any innovation need. When leaders understand how innovation works, they can see what is missing and, as with any other leadership challenge, create a strategy or plan to make it better. They can also appreciate and leverage the different skills, perspectives, and contributions that are needed along the way. Make the Middle a Hotbed of InnovationWithout investing in the middle, innovation won’t move through the organization. Ideas won’t be connected to other ideas. People won’t be connected to others who hold a piece of the puzzle they are trying to solve. Innovation, whether with large, game-changing new products, processes, or markets or small-scale, but valuable, solutions, will not take hold. In contrast, when organizations understand the unique role leaders in the middle play, they can begin to un-stick innovation. By developing their innovation skillsets, toolsets, and mindsets, these leaders will give innovators and ideas needed attention and energy. They can turn the middle of the organization from a graveyard of ideas into a hotbed of innovation.

Stuck in the Middle: Why Innovation Dies and What to Do About It

Picture this:  Your training department has just formed a five-person “multimedia team.”  Each team member is competent in IT, and they are self-taught when it comes to video.Within a few weeks the unit is buzzing with everyone busy working on projects for colleagues across the learning division.  However, during an important project, Sean falls ill. Someone needs to step in and finish his project to meet an important internal deadline.   Thanks Suzy!Fortunately, Suzy volunteers to step in.  But she’s faced with a problem: Sean didn’t write a script for the video because he thought it was easier to “wing it.” Suzy now has to determine the learning objective of the video and then write the script.  But what’s the video really about?  She finally finds his notes scattered through a manila folder in his camera case. But there’s no shot list or list of footage that he had captured.  Sean, who is very creative and a talented graphic designer, didn’t log the video he had already shot.  Why should he?  He knew where everything was. But Suzy doesn’t.  So, she spends an entire day viewing and re-viewing hours of video to find appropriate clips.Where are the graphics files?What about the graphics files?  Sean had completed them, but Suzy couldn’t find any of them—and she cannot get in touch with Sean. Suzy must start from scratch.This should have been a simple job.  But Sean’s approach was entire differently to hers, and he was a bit sloppy in his housekeeping.  As the deadline approaches, Suzy feels the pressure, so she turns to her colleagues for help. Thankfully, her team will pitch in. Stuart, who is an editing whiz, offers to cut the clips together so Suzy can finish the graphics. How do I edit this?The problem is that Stuart wants to edit his section of the video using Final Cut, which he considers to be the best software for editing. Although, in truth, it’s the only editing software he knows. There is nothing wrong with Final Cut—except Suzy set the project up in Premier, which she thinks is the best software for editing.  What software should they use?The boss is losing hair.Meanwhile, Rachel, the director of learning, feels the heat coming out of the multimedia office every time she walks past their door.  But she has no idea what the problem is.The multimedia unit is producing a couple of videos a week, but she’d really like to see more output because a team of five should be able to do more, right?  Some of the videos have been really good—but others were disappointing. Cleary, the productivity isn’t outstanding, nor is the video quality standard consistent. She keeps wondering if she should have just budgeted for a professional video crew.This is real, but it shouldn’t be.Sound familiar?  This type of scenario happens in organizations all around the globe.  While the challenges vary in degree, they usually follow the same pattern. A multimedia team is formed to churn out great content to avoid hiring external vendors, but things go wrong because team members lack the right skills and everyone has a different way of doing the same thing.It doesn’t have to be like this.  I believe learning video is the flipchart of the future.  It promises so many benefits to what we as learning professionals offer   our organizations.  We can’t afford to not do it right.As an industry, we need to professionalize the way learning video is produced in training organizations.  Here are just a few ways to do this.  I’ll elaborate on them more in future posts.We need to learn media grammar, and evolve it for learning applications.  We need to learn media psychology and apply it. We need to learn production skills.  These include technical, editorial, and pedagogical disciplines.  These skills should be part of future train-the-trainer classes. We must broaden the talent base.  Learning video is often championed by one person who acts as gatekeeper to all things visual.  Every trainer needs to learn how to make cheep and cheerful video to enhance their classroom and e-learning solutions.We need a standard for what is acceptable and what is not.  Poorly lit “wobbly” cam is acceptable for only so long.  Now is the time to demand certain standards about how video looks.We need to develop video workflows.  Everyone in your department should follow the same production techniques and housekeeping rules.  If someone is sick, a colleague should be able to jump in quickly.  We need to know when not to use video.  Video is expensive, and it is not ideal for every training situation or topic.  We need to go beyond the “gee this is fun” stage to producing video only when it really achieves a learning outcome linked to the business.What do you think?  What are your experiences with video? Have you found the magic workflow or series of production disciplines for your organization?  Or are you still searching for them?