Security continues to be an important topic relating to all things digital, both for individuals and online businesses. Breaches in security can happen through a variety of means, and one recent ransomware attack that affected the UK National Health Service has a lot of people asking how they can protect themselves and their businesses.
“It’s in the cloud!” is a phrase that doesn’t really tell you much, if you’re not already familiar with modern hosted software infrastructure.
One of the most commonly used cloud-based services is probably email. Web-based email providers from Hotmail to Gmail don’t require you to physically store your email data on your own hard drive or on your own server. Instead, you can access it on a website through your browser, where you can login and access your email. The email data is retrieved from where your email service provider stores it. In the cloud. Hmm. Still confused?
Let’s back up a bit.
Just where the heck are these clouds, anyways? Why are they so special? Part of why cloud computing has become so popular over the last couple decades is that it pools together processing power and other resources, which makes it easier for software providers to deliver their services more quickly and efficiently.
This is particularly useful when the software needs to use large sets of data and run searches and complex queries on it. It’s also why some cheap-and-cheerful solutions for job board software out there can run into trouble as their database grows. Data processing power is not equal on every server or hosting service provider.
In January I wrote about the importance of having compassion for job seekers, both the highly sought-after “top talent” candidates and the ones who don’t even make it to your shortlist. Even if job seekers follow every bit of wise advice, it’s still so often a frustrating and unrewarding process.
Well, one man decided to build a bot that would apply to thousands of jobs for him as a kind of experiment while he searched for jobs. His thinking was he might be able to A/B test different cover letters and email subject lines. In theory, he would have been able to refine the content based on the results. But he was disturbed to discover that most large companies using Applicant Tracking Software rarely even viewed his applications, and fewer still returned any response, automatically generated or otherwise.
While his experiment confirmed that applying to jobs en mass (sometimes called the “spray and pray” method) isn’t effective, it also underlines how often employers and recruiters can miss out on great talent due to the systems and processes they use. There are many factors at play here, but Robert Coombs’ experiment illustrates how important it is for employers and recruiters to look closely at their candidate experience, and whether they are losing out on great talent because of their processes and tools, or assumptions and attitudes that may shape them.
No corporation seems to be safe these days. Target, Home Depot, Sony, and most, recently Ashley Madison are just some of the billion-dollar brands that have suffered lapses in digital information security. Literally, just a couple days ago, we received a phone call from a job board owner who had been victim of a data breach.
The Careerleaf team is currently prepping to launch exciting new software in the coming months. In this effort, our updated FAQ features a question about approach to data security. However, given the level of attention currently being devoted to the topic (Ashley Madison specifically), we felt it prudent to delve deeper with an entire blog post.
If you’ve taken data security for granted, this blog post is dedicated to you! Ask yourself, when was the last time you considered: