What is the Semantic Web ? And why should recruiting or HR care ?

I have often heard the phrase: “data is money!”

The world roughly produces about 1.5 billion gigabytes of data storage each year - that roughly equates to 250 megabytes per person. With the increase popularity of social networking sites, the internet is generating even more business discussions, webinars, product demonstrations, heated debates, and elearning material that includes step-by-step training videos. All of this content is data - and very soon, that data will not be “application specific.” With common data formats and standards, the interrelationships and interdependencies of data will be analyzed, qualified, and quantified in order to help business professionals make decisions and demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of business strategies. The new world-wide-web is being called the Semantic Web – and it will soon become a significant part of company’s business and recruiting strategies, branding, marketing, and advertising.

According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries. It is a collaborative effort led by W3C with participation from a large number of researchers and industrial partners. It is based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF), a standard model for data interaction on the web.

Google (a company known for advertising based on contextual data) acquired Metaweb, a leader in the semantic web arena and makers of Freebase (an open, semantically marked up database of information.) Community members help collect and monitor the collection of large collaborative knowledge base. These same community members are the same volunteers monitoring online chat boards, discussion groups, opensource communities, and online collaborative projects. These technology evangelists give their time and skills in order to make the Internet a more civil and productive environment. These online neighborhood-watch volunteers make sure that people contributing to the data abide by data formatting policies and practices, but also make sure that online communication and contributions are done in a respectful and orderly manner.

Structured data is arranged in online collections from many different internet websites, resources, and individual wikis. Data will soon be harvested, organized, and be available in new and exciting ways. If it is your responsibility to establish your company’s recruiting strategy, the semantic web is going to be the new venue for finding top quality passive candidates. I also believe that the semantic web will provide recruiters and human resource professionals the analytical tools and reporting applications that will allow us to prove the productivity and ROI of the recruiting strategies, concepts, and employer branding we’re trying to deploy via the vast Internet.

References:

Cameron, C., “Google Marks Major Semantic Web Play, Acquires Freebase Operators Metaweb,” (July 16, 2010) ReadWriteWeb. Viewed via http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_buys_semantic_web_database_metaweb.php

Lyman, P., Varian, H. R., “How Much Information?” (2000), University of California at Berkely, School of Information Management and Systems. Viewed via: http://www.attitudeweb.be/doc/resources/studies/how_much_information_produced_world_year_en.pdf

The World Wide Web Consortium (2010), W3C, MIT, ERCIM, Keio. Viewed via http://www.w3.org/; http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/; http://www.w3.org/RDF/