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人工智能的新功能:帮助退役军人找工作

人工智能的新功能:帮助退役军人找工作

Jeremy Kahn 2020-11-16
从明年开始,一个基于人工智能的全新软件系统将在求职方面为许多退役军人提供帮助。

查尔斯•劳曾经于美国空军预备役部队服役超过38年,当前正在现役部队中担任军士长的职务,他打算退役后在地方找一份工作,但考虑到上一次在地方上求职已经是19年前的事情,他对自己能否如愿以偿感到非常忐忑。

在谈及求职时,劳说:“找工作不是一件容易的事情。首先,要想好自己下一步做什么,然后还得学着跟地方单位打交道,毕竟在军中待久了,行事方式多少会与地方上有些差异。”

劳还说,他发现自己听不太懂公司雇主使用的术语。“地方上用的术语和行话跟部队里不太一样,要弄明白雇主想要什么样的人,并让他们明白我有哪些技能需要费些功夫,而且让雇主理解这些技能跟地方工作有什么关联也不太容易。”

每年约有20万军人从军中退役,回到地方生活,很多人面临着和劳相同的困境。但从明年开始,一个基于人工智能的全新软件系统将在求职方面为许多退役军人提供帮助。

为帮助退役军人更好地适应地方生活,找到适合自己的工作,美国劳工部(U.S. Department of Labor)推出了“过渡援助计划”(Transition Assistance Program),为进一步改进该计划,劳工部还举行了一场软件系统开发大赛。在此次比赛中,总部位于加州山景城、成立已经有四年的Eightfold AI公司脱颖而出,凭借基于人工智能技术开发的招聘与“人才管理”软件一举击败了50多家竞争企业,其中不乏领英、Vantage Point Consulting等招聘行业巨头,甚至连专门帮助企业招聘退役军人的JobPath Partners在其面前也败下阵来。

Eightfold的公共部门业务高级总监丹•霍普金斯说,为了赢得这项比赛,公司专门为军方人士创建了一个网站,将美军职位代码转换为该职位所包含的各种技能,并加入了求职者可能具备的其他相关技能。同样也是退役军人的霍普金斯表示:“假设某人是一名炮兵,地方上能够与之匹配的工作可以有什么?不过能够肯定的是,从部队出来的人都是久经考验,并且拥有良好的领导才能。”

除了Eightfold,将人工智能技术用于招聘的初创企业还有数十家,包括Pymetrics、Mya Systems和HireVue等等。Eightfold的软件能够根据求职者的既有知识预测其未来可以学会哪些新技能。“如果你了解A技能,那么你就可能知道B技能,或者可以学会C技能,还能够预测出你大概需要多久可以学会。”霍普金斯说。

Eightfold开发的这套系统可以对军人的军衔、级别以及他晋升到该级别的速度进行评估,这些信息能够将候选军人的领导能力和学习能力一目了然地呈现给雇主。“假设某位候选人只用五年时间就晋升到了上士级别,那说明他在部队里的表现非常优秀,晋升速度很快。而在传统的简历中,我们看不到这些信息。”

Eightfold的总裁卡迈勒•阿卢瓦利亚表示,退伍军人拥有的许多软技能在普通简历中并未得到体现,比如在不确定的环境中工作的能力。他说:“军人拥有很多软技能,而且他们还具备在高压下工作的能力。”

霍普金斯表示,政府现有的“过渡援助计划”项目的问题是,在了解求职者技能时过于依赖求职者填写的自我评估问卷,搜索空缺职位也主要靠关键字搜索。但如其所言,许多退役军人都低估了自己的实际技能,关键字搜索虽然可以帮助他们找到大量的潜在工作机会,但是却没有筛选最佳机会的好方法。以战斗工程师为例,如果你是一位战斗工程师,10月时在“过渡援助计划”的职位数据库中搜索华盛顿特区的空缺工程师职位,那么你会搜索到22,000多个可能的工作机会,从中进行挑选无疑是一项浩大的工程。

相比之下,Eightfold的软件则为求职者提供了一份包含特定职缺的列表,还可以为雇主推荐合适的候选人。此外,该软件还为职位相似或相关的退役军人搭建了人脉网络,同样能够为其所用。

霍普金斯说:“对处在过渡阶段的军人而言,搭建有质量、有相关性的人脉网络非常重要。而我们所做的则是找到其适合的职位,再找出正在从事相关职位的退役军人,并帮助他们建立联系。”

在赢得本次比赛后,Eightfold拿到了72万美元的奖金,同时还获得了美国国防部与退役军人事务部的支持。

即将退役的军士长劳协助Eightfold完成了软件测试工作,他表示,认识在潜在雇主处工作的退役军人(在求职过程中)常常具有决定性意义。他说:“在公司里碰到退役军人让我感觉很舒服。作为军人,无论是刚认识,还是已经有了多年的交情,我们对彼此都有一种家人的感觉。我也发现,退役军人更容易理解彼此的想法。”

阿卢瓦利亚表示,该公司从各种公开及专有数据集中抓取了10亿多名员工的个人资料,数据来源包括行业期刊上发布的招聘公告、校友杂志等处发布的文章、相关人员的晋升履历等等,并用这些资料对Eightfold的人工智能系统进行了训练,向其灌输了超过50万种职位及其对应的140万项基本技能的相关信息。经过训练之后,该算法将使用这些信息来尝试预测给定求职者的职业发展道路。

Eightfold在上月的D轮融资中筹集了1.25亿美元,使其自成立以来总的融资规模超过了1.8亿美元。该轮融资由总部位于马萨诸塞州坎布里奇市的风投公司General Catalyst领投,该公司对Eightfold的估值为10亿美元。(财富中文网)

译者:梁宇

审校:夏林

查尔斯•劳曾经于美国空军预备役部队服役超过38年,当前正在现役部队中担任军士长的职务,他打算退役后在地方找一份工作,但考虑到上一次在地方上求职已经是19年前的事情,他对自己能否如愿以偿感到非常忐忑。

在谈及求职时,劳说:“找工作不是一件容易的事情。首先,要想好自己下一步做什么,然后还得学着跟地方单位打交道,毕竟在军中待久了,行事方式多少会与地方上有些差异。”

劳还说,他发现自己听不太懂公司雇主使用的术语。“地方上用的术语和行话跟部队里不太一样,要弄明白雇主想要什么样的人,并让他们明白我有哪些技能需要费些功夫,而且让雇主理解这些技能跟地方工作有什么关联也不太容易。”

每年约有20万军人从军中退役,回到地方生活,很多人面临着和劳相同的困境。但从明年开始,一个基于人工智能的全新软件系统将在求职方面为许多退役军人提供帮助。

为帮助退役军人更好地适应地方生活,找到适合自己的工作,美国劳工部(U.S. Department of Labor)推出了“过渡援助计划”(Transition Assistance Program),为进一步改进该计划,劳工部还举行了一场软件系统开发大赛。在此次比赛中,总部位于加州山景城、成立已经有四年的Eightfold AI公司脱颖而出,凭借基于人工智能技术开发的招聘与“人才管理”软件一举击败了50多家竞争企业,其中不乏领英、Vantage Point Consulting等招聘行业巨头,甚至连专门帮助企业招聘退役军人的JobPath Partners在其面前也败下阵来。

Eightfold的公共部门业务高级总监丹•霍普金斯说,为了赢得这项比赛,公司专门为军方人士创建了一个网站,将美军职位代码转换为该职位所包含的各种技能,并加入了求职者可能具备的其他相关技能。同样也是退役军人的霍普金斯表示:“假设某人是一名炮兵,地方上能够与之匹配的工作可以有什么?不过能够肯定的是,从部队出来的人都是久经考验,并且拥有良好的领导才能。”

除了Eightfold,将人工智能技术用于招聘的初创企业还有数十家,包括Pymetrics、Mya Systems和HireVue等等。Eightfold的软件能够根据求职者的既有知识预测其未来可以学会哪些新技能。“如果你了解A技能,那么你就可能知道B技能,或者可以学会C技能,还能够预测出你大概需要多久可以学会。”霍普金斯说。

Eightfold开发的这套系统可以对军人的军衔、级别以及他晋升到该级别的速度进行评估,这些信息能够将候选军人的领导能力和学习能力一目了然地呈现给雇主。“假设某位候选人只用五年时间就晋升到了上士级别,那说明他在部队里的表现非常优秀,晋升速度很快。而在传统的简历中,我们看不到这些信息。”

Eightfold的总裁卡迈勒•阿卢瓦利亚表示,退伍军人拥有的许多软技能在普通简历中并未得到体现,比如在不确定的环境中工作的能力。他说:“军人拥有很多软技能,而且他们还具备在高压下工作的能力。”

霍普金斯表示,政府现有的“过渡援助计划”项目的问题是,在了解求职者技能时过于依赖求职者填写的自我评估问卷,搜索空缺职位也主要靠关键字搜索。但如其所言,许多退役军人都低估了自己的实际技能,关键字搜索虽然可以帮助他们找到大量的潜在工作机会,但是却没有筛选最佳机会的好方法。以战斗工程师为例,如果你是一位战斗工程师,10月时在“过渡援助计划”的职位数据库中搜索华盛顿特区的空缺工程师职位,那么你会搜索到22,000多个可能的工作机会,从中进行挑选无疑是一项浩大的工程。

相比之下,Eightfold的软件则为求职者提供了一份包含特定职缺的列表,还可以为雇主推荐合适的候选人。此外,该软件还为职位相似或相关的退役军人搭建了人脉网络,同样能够为其所用。

霍普金斯说:“对处在过渡阶段的军人而言,搭建有质量、有相关性的人脉网络非常重要。而我们所做的则是找到其适合的职位,再找出正在从事相关职位的退役军人,并帮助他们建立联系。”

在赢得本次比赛后,Eightfold拿到了72万美元的奖金,同时还获得了美国国防部与退役军人事务部的支持。

即将退役的军士长劳协助Eightfold完成了软件测试工作,他表示,认识在潜在雇主处工作的退役军人(在求职过程中)常常具有决定性意义。他说:“在公司里碰到退役军人让我感觉很舒服。作为军人,无论是刚认识,还是已经有了多年的交情,我们对彼此都有一种家人的感觉。我也发现,退役军人更容易理解彼此的想法。”

阿卢瓦利亚表示,该公司从各种公开及专有数据集中抓取了10亿多名员工的个人资料,数据来源包括行业期刊上发布的招聘公告、校友杂志等处发布的文章、相关人员的晋升履历等等,并用这些资料对Eightfold的人工智能系统进行了训练,向其灌输了超过50万种职位及其对应的140万项基本技能的相关信息。经过训练之后,该算法将使用这些信息来尝试预测给定求职者的职业发展道路。

Eightfold在上月的D轮融资中筹集了1.25亿美元,使其自成立以来总的融资规模超过了1.8亿美元。该轮融资由总部位于马萨诸塞州坎布里奇市的风投公司General Catalyst领投,该公司对Eightfold的估值为10亿美元。(财富中文网)

译者:梁宇

审校:夏林

Charles Law found the prospect of looking for a job daunting. After more than 38 years in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and then on active duty, Law, now a master sergeant, was retiring and looking for work in the civilian world. But it had been 19 years since he’d last searched for a job outside the military.

“It was kind of scary,” Law says of his employment search. “First trying to decide what it is that I wanted to do next and then having to deal with the civilian sector after having been attached to the military for so long.”

Law says he found the jargon used by corporate employers confusing. “The terminology and lingo is just not the same,” he says. “And trying to get an understanding of what they are looking for and trying to help them understand what skills I had and how that relates to a civilian job, that is a bit challenging.”

Each year, about 200,000 members of the armed forces leave the military and transition to civilian life. And many of them face the same struggles Law did. But starting next year, a new software system based on artificial intelligence will help many of these veterans find work.

Eightfold AI, a four-year-old company based in Mountain View, Calif., that makes A.I.-enabled recruiting and “talent management” software, won a U.S. Department of Labor competition to build a software system to help improve its existing Transition Assistance Program (TAP), which helps those leaving the military prepare for civilian life, including finding employment. The startup beat out 50 other companies, including more established players in recruitment technology such as LinkedIn, Vantage Point Consulting, and even JobPath Partners, a company that specializes in helping companies hire veterans.

To win the competition, Eightfold created a website for military members that takes a U.S. military job code and translates that job into its component skills—but also any related skills the job seeker might have, says Dan Hopkins, senior director of Eightfold’s public sector business. “If I am in artillery, what is the equivalent in civilian life?” Hopkins, himself a veteran, says. “But that person will have a lot of training and leadership skills.”

Eightfold is among dozens of startups—including Pymetrics, Mya Systems, and HireVue—that are applying A.I. to recruitment. The company’s software can predict what skills the job seeker might be able to learn based on what that person already knows. “If you know skill A, might you also know skill B or could you learn skill C, and how quickly could you learn it,” Hopkins says.

The system Eightfold built can also assess what rank and grade a person holds and how quickly they were promoted to that rank—which can be a good proxy for the ability to learn new skills and leadership abilities. “If a candidate is an E-6 and they made that in five years—that is actually very good and means they advanced quickly. All that information is lost in a conventional résumé; it isn’t conveyed,” he says.

Kamal Ahluwalia, Eightfold’s president, says veterans have many soft skills that aren’t picked up on a normal résumé, such as the ability to work in ambiguous environments. “They have this in spades, and they can work under pressure,” he says.

The problem with the government’s existing TAP program is that it is largely based on a self-assessment questionnaire about skills that the job seeker completes, combined with keyword searches for open positions, Hopkins says. But many veterans sell themselves short in terms of the skills they actually have, he says, and keyword searches can return an overwhelming number of potential jobs, with no good way to screen them to find the best opportunities. For instance, a combat engineer who did a search of the TAP’s job database for open engineering roles just in the Washington, D.C., area in October would have to weed through more than 22,000 possible roles.

By contrast, Eightfold’s software curates a list of specific job openings for a candidate. It also curates job candidates for employers. And, for servicemen and -women leaving the military, it curates a network of veterans in similar roles or closely related ones that job seekers can tap.

“For transitioning service members it is really important to have a relevant network—with an emphasis on quality and context,” Hopkins says. “In this case we are surfacing other veterans in the role that I’m a strong match for.”

Eightfold’s victory in the competition came with $720,000 in prize money and was also supported by the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments.

Law, the retiring master sergeant who helped Eightfold test its software, says having that connection with another veteran at prospective employers is often a decisive factor. “I think when I find that person in the company, there is a sense of comfort,” he says. “We as a military, we feel we are all a family whether we have known that person one day or several years. I do find that they have a better understanding of where you are coming from.”

Eightfold’s A.I. has been trained on more than a billion employee profiles that the company harvested from various public and proprietary data sets, which include public announcements of new hires in trade journals and posts from sources such as alumni magazines, along with information on how those people were promoted over time, Ahluwalia says. It used this data to teach its A.I. algorithm about more than 500,000 different job titles and what the 1.4 million underlying skills inherent in those jobs are. The algorithm then uses this information to try to forecast the likely career progression of any given job seeker.

The company has been backed by more than $180 million in venture capital funding since its founding, including a $125 million financing round announced last month that was led by venture capital firm General Catalyst, based in Cambridge, Mass., which valued the startup at $1 billion.

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