[ExI] mit's answer to the stanford ai class

[Kelly Anderson]

On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 12:13 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> I know there are some companies that actually call references, and
> some fraction of them actually consider what the references say, but
> this seems to be a vanishingly small fraction.  Most places, you could
> just make up references, and no one would ever care (or know, other
> than you).

The problem is that there is so much liability for the references to
say anything bad about the prospective employee, that there is no
point in even calling them. People who ask for references are just
stuck in an old mode of thinking that I think is obsoleted by lawyers
and by the fact that Google will tell you more about a person than a
phone call ever could.

My favorite answer is to say, "I'm happy to say that he is a former
associate of mine..." ... think about it...

There may even be AIs out there that scour the web for your
information and present it to HR people in a concise format. If there
aren't, there soon will be. This is entirely within the realm of what
Watson or his cousins can accomplish.

-Kelly