If you are a senior professional in 2010, you likely have a web page, a blog post, Linkedin profile, Facebook Page, Twitter profile and a significant Google presence. Maintaining a professional profile is important in managing your career but did you know that the information you post could be used by an employer to predict your future within their organization?
Predictive analytics is the use of algorithms to detect patterns and connections in life to predict future events. A new company in this field, Recorded Future is featured in an article in Macleans, “Corporate Mind Games”, as “the world’s first temporal analytics engine”. By scanning information from websites, news stories, blogs and Twitter pages for links between individuals, groups and incidents in the past and applying “Temporal Reasoning” they are citing the ability to predict events that haven’t yet happened.
Using past information to predict future events is nothing new as financial data has been used for many years to analyze an individuals credit worthiness. A history of outstanding payments and late payment fees is a good indication of how future payments will be made. In addition to financial information we now have access to a tremendous amount of personal and professional information available online. HR departments have the potential to accumulate and analyze this information to predict the future of their employees. Is it possible that your history will indicate the next time you will call in sick or when you will change jobs?
