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The lastest stories and analysis on the Economist job market

With Big Data comes Big Responsibility

The citizens of the European Union have just elected 751 MEPs to the European Parliament. Across 28 countries, some 500 million citizens voted by secret ballot for public representatives. A small number of people chose to disregard the secrecy of the ballot and posted election selfies on Twitter and Facebook which showed their ballot paper; some were intended to entertain the world with the witty way in which they had spoiled their vote. In Irela...

Expect to be asked your salary expectations

“What are your salary expectations?” they ask towards the end of the interview. If you’ve got the nerve, say nothing for a minute, until they ‎make ‎an offer. If it’s enormous and they mistake your stunned silence for reluctance, they might even ‎revise it ‎upwards. That’s what happened to journalist Eamon Dunphy, admittedly in the late 1970s and ‎admittedly he was being ‎interviewed for a soccer correspondent job by an editor who claimed to know...

Variability On Interview Panels

You’re in full flow describing the potential of latent variable modelling with socio-demographic data. You’ve made it to the interview shortlist, not least thanks to your sparkling CV [how to make your CV sparkle], so now it’s time to demonstrate your detailed and sophisticated understanding of statistics, your wealth of experience, and the enormous contribution you’re about to make to their organisation. Then someone stops you to ask: “Sorry, wh...

Careers in Statistics Evolve and Expand

Science Careers, a publication that provides a variety of content to assist scientists of all disciplines, backgrounds and experience levels navigate their career path, this week published online an article highlighting the growing opportunities in the field of statistics. In the article, reporter Puneet Kollipara wrote the following about the job opportunities: “…the range of statistics jobs is expanding, and many traditional jobs are changing. ...

The dangers of accepting a counter offer

"They'll be sorry when I leave!" All too often, employers do seem sorry - suddenly offering the kind of salary, promotion or opportunity for recognition that they had refused to grant before. Of course they're sorry. You're about to leave on your timing, not theirs. There is probably work to be done, which they were counting on you to complete. You have just fired your boss, when he or she would prefer to have the right to fire you. You have crea...

Psychometrics: HR meets hocus pocus

On their first day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Rowling, 1997), each pupil dons The Sorting Hat. Since the school was founded, Godric Gryffindor’s hat has administered a battery of personality tests, intelligence tests, aptitude tests, morality tests, and organisational fit indices to determine which of the four houses would be best suited to that pupil. The Legilimency (Rowling, 1997) of the Sorting Hat is the wizarding equival...

The perfect do-you-have-any-questions question

“I thought you were going to go that way,” says your passenger as you speed past the motorway exit marked The Way You Really Should Have Gone. “Did you not know about the ten-mile tail-backs causing four-hour delays?” Clearly, you did not know but if you had you might have done things somewhat differently. Time to resign yourself to a long wait for the next exit, wondering about what might have been. That’s your feedback from the HR manager when ...

Make Your CV Sparkle with Statistics Software

Counting on one’s fingers is no longer enough it seems. Luckily, there are plenty of software packages to do the counting for us and this post will take you through everything from the most basic options to the captivating floating globes of Hans Rosling’s Trendanalyzer. Disciplines tend to have their own favourite and, in general, economists use Stata, social scientists SPSS, statisticians SAS, and engineers MATLAB, though it’s sometimes just th...

Someone to watch over me: FIFA’s lesson in supervision

FIFA is in the middle of a bit of a crisis at the moment. The president has resigned, seven senior officials are being investigated by the FBI after one entered a plea bargain, and a former vice-president accused FIFA of interfering in the Trinidadian and Tobagonian general election in 2010. There are allegations of bribery dating back twenty years and millions of dollars in inducement, kick-backs, phantom grants, and un-repaid loans, all under t...

Liars, damned liars, and people who respond to opinion polls

“If this exit poll is right, I will publicly eat my hat on your programme,” said Paddy Ashdown on the BBC’s election night coverage. People on all sides struggled to believe the exit polls and came up with all sorts of explanations, until it turned out it was the opinion polls that got it wrong. There are several possibilities: people lied in all the polls before the exit poll or loads of people changed their minds once they had the pencils in th...

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