Moneybox

Big Data Says You Should Hire Criminals

Career opportunities, the ones that never knocked.

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Eamon Javers tells us about a bunch of correlations people are finding as our computational power increases, including this gem for the human resources department:

But here’s the weirdest thing [Evolv] said it has discovered: Criminals can make better employees than anyone else. Evolv calculates that employees with criminal backgrounds are 1 to 1.5 percent more productive on the job than people without criminal records, and the firm said that difference in a large company “could result in tens of millions in profit and loss gain.”

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that people with criminal records are good moneyball hires, who come at a salary discount that’s way out of proportion to their job performance. But the news that criminals outperform in absolute terms is pretty fascinating. The CEO of the company thinks it may be because they feel an unusual sense of gratitude and loyalty.