I've seen a number of comments and posts that make it clear that there is confusion about how the voting at TalentSpring works, here's my initial stab at clearing all of that up. First I'll explain why the misconceptions are incorrect and then I'll talk in more detail about how it really works.
Misconception #1: TalentSpring is a Social Networking Site
I'm not sure how people got this idea, but we don't really have any social networking type features at this point. It is true that members of the community vote on each other, but I think it is a stretch to consider that social networking.
The weird thing is that once some people decided to call it a social networking site, they then went off on a tangent about how social networking sites were so horrible and thus we must be as well because we're a social networking site...
Misconception #2: TalentSpring Uses Digg-Style Voting
A lot of excellent sites out there do their ranking by letting users cast a vote on an item, thumbs up or thumbs down, and items will bubble or or sink down based on those votes. I think this is why people believe resumes on TalentSpring would become a popularity contest.
We don't do it that way, you don't say whether you like or dislike something, instead you compare two that should be comparable and say which one is better (even if marginally).
More importantly, users do not choose who they vote on, we have algorithms that calculate which votes are needed to properly order the job categories, and we do random sampling so users cannot game the system to make sure they get to vote on who they want to.
Misconception #3: I Can Vote People Down To Vote Myself Up
This is incorrect both for the reason I just mentioned (you don't choose who you vote on) and a more subtle point: You don't know how the decision you're making will affect you. Which vote would help your placement depends on other people's votes that have been made as well as ones that have not yet been made.
The voting decision is between two resumes, you cannot "push one down" without lifting the other up, and without knowing the full relationship of all the existing members of the category as well as those that are in the process of being ranked you cannot know which one would help you out, or if it would affect you at all.
How It Really Works
Well, at least at a high level.
First, you enter either a mini-resume (the three accomplishments thing that allows you to try it out without going to the trouble of entering a full resume) or your full resume and request ranking. We then have other users vote on your resume vs. others in the same job category. Any individual user won't get to do more than one or two votes on the same resume, and it will take a number of users making redundant decisions before we decide on your real placement.
If users are disagreeing on votes we bring in those we have identified as more skilled (more often correct) to break ties. We also have people do extra redundant votes in some cases to get more verification. From all of that we can figure out who are better voters, which votes should be tossed, and which votes should be kept for ranking calculations.
Once you're placed with a specific version of your resume you can update the contents and get re-ranked with the new version. Heck, if you think it was placed poorly you can request re-ranking with the same version. We also have employees who scan the rankings and if they see someone clearly out of place they can force a re-ranking.
We want this to be a feedback loop that doesn't exist in the industry right now. You get a bad score? Look over your resume, look at those around you in the rankings, and those much higher. Are they just that much more experienced, or are they describing themselves differently in a way that's getting them the votes more often? Maybe your resume is full of typos or bad grammar. Today you post that resume and the only ones who are going to tell you it needs work are your friends who take the time, not employers and certainly not other employees you're competing against.
As with the resume version post, please let me know if you have further questions on how it all works, your feedback is greatly appreciated.
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