Beleaguered job seekers: you can look forward to a day very soon when the fate of your employment will no longer be in the hands of some bored and prejudiced HR person. Instead, you will be able to be rejected by a computer program, which can mathematically quantify your many shameful human flaws.

As part of the completely friendly takeover of our society by The Machines, several new companies are creating algorithms that will soon handle the dreary task of selecting workers to be hired with perfect mathematical precision. No more worrying about your outfit for the job interview, or making sure your breath is fresh. With The Machines in charge, all you'll have to worry about is performing a series of tasks in exactly the same way that people who have previously been successful at this job performed them. (Not that the tasks have anything to do with the actual job!) Doesn't that sound like an improvement? Bloomberg gives you a glimpse into the future of hiring:

To aid that search, Juhl this month will begin using an online video game designed to track, record and analyze every millisecond of its players’ behavior. Developed by Knack in Palo Alto, California, Wasabi Waiter places job-seekers in the shoes of a sushi server who must identify the mood of his cartoon customers and bring them the dish labeled with the matching emotion. On a running clock, they must also clear empty dishes into the sink while tending to new customers who take a seat at the bar.

Using about a megabyte of data per candidate, Knack’s software measures a variety of attributes shown in academic studies to relate to job performance, including conscientiousness and the capacity to recognize others’ emotions. Knack’s clients will also see a score estimating each applicant’s likelihood of being a high performer.

Quite the improvement on a boring old job interview. I love what The Machines have done here. A brilliant system, yes. My favorite game, you ask? Wasabi Waiter. My favorite hobby? Machines. Five years from now, I see myself being: Machine.

[Photo: Flickr]