What do employers learn from interviews? Can they be replaced?

The NY Times had a recent column covering the latest version of this old debate about the informativeness of interviews:

ROBO RECRUITING--Can an Algorithm Hire Better Than a Human?

"A new wave of start-ups — including Gild, Entelo, Textio,Doxa and GapJumpers — is trying various ways to automate hiring. They say that software can do the job more effectively and efficiently than people can. Many people are beginning to buy into the idea. Established headhunting firms like Korn Ferry are incorporating algorithms into their work, too.

"If they succeed, they say, hiring could become faster and less expensive, and their data could lead recruiters to more highly skilled people who are better matches for their companies. Another potential result: a more diverse workplace. The software relies on data to surface candidates from a wide variety of places and match their skills to the job requirements, free of human biases."

The market for robotics talent

The labor market for computer scientists is thriving.

The collaboration between Uber and Carnegie Mellon University on driverless-car technology has some unusually competitive dimensions, when it comes to hiring. The WSJ has the story:
Carnegie Mellon Reels After Uber Lures Away Researchers--Uber staffs new tech center with researchers poached from its collaborator on self-driving technology

"Carnegie Mellon University is scrambling to recover after Uber Technologies Inc. poached 40 of its researchers and scientists earlier this year, a raid that left one of the world’s top robotics research institutions in a crisis.

In February, Carnegie Mellon and Uber trumpeted a strategic partnership in which the school would “work closely” with the ride-hailing service to develop driverless-car technology.

Behind the scenes, the tie-up was more combative than collaborative.

Uber envisions autonomous cars that could someday replace its tens of thousands of contract drivers. With virtually no in-house capability, the San Francisco company went to the one place with enough talent to build a team instantly: Carnegie Mellon’s National Robotics Engineering Center, or NREC.

Flush with cash after raising more than $5 billion from investors, Uber offered some scientists bonuses of hundreds of thousands of dollars and a doubling of salaries to staff the company’s new tech center in Pittsburgh, according to one researcher at NREC."

The WSJ story ends with a nice quote about CMU:

"Carnegie Mellon likes “to focus on the fringe of science, not the center of it,” Mr. Thrun said. “It is easier to do something crazy and get it done. You could do almost anything at Carnegie Mellon and get away with it.”

Claudia Goldin interview on the history of labor force participation by women, among other things

The interview is in Econ Focus, published by the Richmond Fed: Claudia Goldin

Here's one paragraph:
"EF: What changed in society that allowed this revolution to occur?

Goldin: One of the most important changes was the appearance of reliable, female-controlled birth control. The pill lowered the cost to women of making long-term career investments. Before reliable birth control, a woman faced a nontrivial probability of having her career derailed by an unplanned pregnancy — or she had to pay the penalty of abstinence. The lack of highly reliable birth control also meant a set of institutions developed around dating and sex to create commitment: Couples would "go steady," then they would get "pinned," then they would get engaged. If you're pinned or engaged when you're 19 or 20 years old, you're not going to wait until you're 28 to get married. So a lot of women got married within a year or two of graduating college. That meant women who pursued a career also paid a penalty in the marriage market. But the pill made it possible for women who were "on the pill" to delay marriage, and that, in turn, created a "thicker" marriage market for all women to marry later and further lowered the cost to women of investing in a career."