[HN Gopher] Engage with an unemployment algorithm
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Engage with an unemployment algorithm
        
       Author : bryanrasmussen
       Score  : 96 points
       Date   : 2022-06-13 09:41 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (ledighedsalgoritmen.dk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (ledighedsalgoritmen.dk)
        
       | lancebeet wrote:
       | Unemployment sure doesn't seem to be a big issue for front-end
       | developers in Denmark.
        
         | Izmaki wrote:
         | Anything that allows you to pocket a starting salary of 36k /
         | month fresh from a B.Sc. does not have a problem with
         | unemployment, lol...
        
           | tokai wrote:
           | The job marked for B.Sc.'s is actually quite small in
           | Denmark. Everybody takes a master.
        
             | Izmaki wrote:
             | In IT it's different. 9/10 software development, DevOps,
             | System/Network/Security Engineering, and so forth jobs I've
             | seen have required just a bachelors degree. Other fields
             | are likely different.
        
             | McBeige wrote:
             | Would you mind sharing where I can read about this? It's
             | going to be important for my upcoming career choices.
        
               | mrweasel wrote:
               | I don't have any statistics on this, but when I studied
               | computer science 20 years ago, nobody stopped at the
               | B.Sc. Depending on the university, it's basically only
               | another year, writing one or two papers, and then a year,
               | either doing the same or the equivalent of a minor, where
               | you're just doing the first year of the B.Sc. in some
               | other field.
               | 
               | One issue you might encounter is that Danish IT companies
               | are obsessed with hiring people with a masters, even if
               | the job doesn't even require a B.Sc. Most of the jobs in
               | the industry could be fulfilled by people from trade-
               | schools or other shorter educations. Companies just seem
               | to have this idea that they need engineers or people with
               | a masters in computer science, even if their product is
               | just some CRUD application.
        
               | Izmaki wrote:
               | Things have changed. You can get far with just a
               | bachelors degree, if you are open to working other places
               | than Big Four and corporations with tens of thousands of
               | employees. I have anyway, and I'm only 10 years behind
               | you. If you move into InfoSec the requirements for
               | degrees are even smaller, at the end of the day.
               | 
               | Also how much is a masters degree even worth after a
               | handful of years of relevant experience anyway? Not
               | much...
        
               | tokai wrote:
               | Newsblog post from Aalborg Uni with a good overview of
               | the issue: https://www.careers.aau.dk/nyheder/vis/snart-
               | bachelor---hvad...
               | 
               | The ministry of research and education's page about their
               | project to develop the job market for bscs.:
               | https://ufm.dk/uddannelse/videregaende-
               | uddannelse/fleksible-...
               | 
               | It's not like its impossible to get a job with a
               | bachelor. Almost all companies and institutions will just
               | automaticity look for master graduates, and you might
               | have to educate them about the benefits of getting the
               | same capabilities for a lower pay.
        
           | googlryas wrote:
           | Is that take home per month or pre-tax and all that?
        
             | Izmaki wrote:
             | 36,000 DKK. before taxes give or take 2000 is the average
             | starting salary for people fresh from university, in
             | Software Development, System/network engineering, DevOps,
             | Security and those kinds of IT areas. The nerdy stuff.
        
         | PeterStuer wrote:
         | Even when you are over 56?
        
       | londons_explore wrote:
       | Soooo.... What is the _use_ of the output of this algorithm?
       | 
       | If it's for the government to predict how many 'help finding
       | employment' leaflets the government should print next month, that
       | seems fine.
       | 
       | If it's to decide who is eligible for state handouts, it is
       | unsuitable.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | GistNoesis wrote:
       | Is this the real life or is it just fantasy ?
       | 
       | How far is this demo from the real algorithm ? In the demo it
       | seems they use a very simple decision tree just based on very few
       | criterion (In order : Self-perceived ability to get a job,
       | Origin, Age, Recent employment rate).
       | 
       | Does this simplistic (racist and ageist) model have been derived
       | from real data and is in use, or is it just some kind of
       | propaganda (from CopenHagen University?) and the real model they
       | use is much more complex.
       | 
       | Random forests can be made much bigger and match data quite well
       | provided they are big enough, but the bigger they get the harder
       | they are to explain.
       | 
       | Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.
        
         | PeterStuer wrote:
         | It seems to be the result of analyzing 152.000 unemployment
         | case histories. While the outcome is rather coarse grained I
         | have a feeling it wouldn't be too far of reality for a quick
         | risk assessment.
         | 
         | You can say e.g. the resulting model surfaces 'ageist' rules,
         | but isn't that just a reflection of reality? Jobs chances for
         | the average >56,5yo are indeed pretty slim, and not just in
         | Denmark. Should the model lie about that?
        
         | jmeister wrote:
         | Is it racist or ageist if it is accurate?
        
         | nonrandomstring wrote:
         | The general problem with all this "algorithmic" (lazy-arse
         | avoidant) jiggery-pokery is that it entrenches a bunch of
         | extant values. An "expert system" - what this is - is nothing
         | but the sum of historical expertise minus the human wisdom lost
         | encoding it.
         | 
         | Thunderbolt and lightning very, very frightening.
        
       | Aeolun wrote:
       | This website is quite terrible on mobile. I don't know how many
       | times we'll have to tell people to stop hijacking the scroll
       | position, but I suspect until the end of time...
       | 
       | Also, none of my questions mattered, by virtue of being a western
       | immigrant and expecting to look for a job from 3-6 months I'm
       | somehow at risk of long term unemployment.
        
         | hampereddustbin wrote:
         | It would be really great if any javascript binding could be
         | turned off in about:config or it's equivalent in other
         | browsers. It's not really a solution, but would bandaid a lot
         | of bad design which I can't see any legitimate use for (like
         | scroll-hijacking).
         | 
         | I guess you can already overwrite any existing function with
         | your custom non-function with userscripts, but that seems quite
         | hacky and non-portable, since most mobile browsers don't really
         | support extensions (Firefox does, but only a small subsection)
        
         | marcinzm wrote:
         | >Also, none of my questions mattered, by virtue of being a
         | western immigrant and expecting to look for a job from 3-6
         | months I'm somehow at risk of long term unemployment.
         | 
         | I wonder if the underlying cause is "having savings and not
         | needing a job to have a comfortable living." May also tie into
         | how easily or not you can get government support. The more
         | desperate you are the more likely you'll settle for any job as
         | quickly as possible.
        
         | martin_a wrote:
         | Yeah, I got the same result, too. Really wonder if this
         | algorithm is good for anything. I tried to play "Give me a
         | break, then I'll look for a job and I am certain I'll find
         | something" and it just tells me I've got a high risk for long
         | term unemployment... Ok, whatever.
        
         | dry_soup wrote:
         | It's pretty terrible on a desktop browser as well
        
         | dusted wrote:
         | Is it any comfort if I tell you it's also quite terrible on
         | desktop? :P
        
         | hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
         | It's quite terrible on desktop too.
        
       | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
       | Based on the visualization the algorithm seems to be:
       | 
       | If you input that you expect to be unemployed for a short/long
       | time, it returns that assumption. Only if you say you don't
       | know...
       | 
       | Immigrant/descendant: High risk of long term unemployment, right
       | away. (Edit: Apparently _except_ non-western immigrants, based on
       | the source code!)
       | 
       | Age is the next check that can classify you as high risk, I
       | didn't look for the threshold (Edit: 56, according to the
       | source). As long as you're below that, the deciding factor is...
       | 
       | How long were you employed out of the past 36 months? 12 months
       | is apparently _good_. (Edit:  <2 is the threshold).
       | 
       | It seems like most of the questions don't seem to be considered
       | (if the visualization is to be believed) and it's a very simple
       | "if x return foo" style algorithm, not some fancy scorer/ML.
       | 
       | Look for function setValues() in
       | https://ledighedsalgoritmen.dk/p5vis.js
        
         | bjarneh wrote:
         | > Look for function setValues() in
         | https://ledighedsalgoritmen.dk/p5vis.js
         | 
         | It seems you've found the algorithm right there. Not only is
         | this algorithm the good old mega-nested-if-test-of-hard-coded-
         | answers for a _few_ of the questions asked. It basically checks
         | if you think you are at risk, then puts you  "atRisk" if you
         | are older than 56/about to retire/an immigrant/pregnant.
         | 
         | Sadly; that is probably enough to report relatively correct
         | values.
        
           | hampereddustbin wrote:
           | There is another way to look at it; a student was able to
           | visualize what they wanted with minimal investment in
           | learning secondary tools to their actual field.
           | 
           | Similar issue is often misattributed in other places like
           | game engines aswell. For example Unity is often labeled as
           | lower quality because of the correlation with bad code
           | quality in many of the games made with it, while forgetting
           | that this is precisely because it's so easy to get started
           | with, more new developers choose it
        
         | wodenokoto wrote:
         | > "if x return foo" style algorithm, not some fancy scorer/ML
         | 
         | It's a decision tree. Decision trees falls under ML. The
         | thresholds are learned from data.
         | 
         | I would imagine they had to use a decision tree in order to
         | tell users and case workers _why_ they are at risk.
         | 
         | The algorithm has been heavily criticized for putting basically
         | all non-western immigrants into the "high risc"-group, but if
         | the job market historically hasn't been willing to hire high
         | performing, non-western immigrants, isn't it the whole point of
         | building an algorithm from data? To shed light on this?
        
           | kaoD wrote:
           | Feels like a decision tree is not the kind of algorithm that
           | can solve this problem due to its multidimensional nature.
           | It's very vulnerable to Simpson's paradox.
           | 
           | It may be right most of the time if we lump everyone in the
           | same bag, but that is not helpful at all.
           | 
           | Also, having the self-evaluated unemployment risk the first
           | deciding factor seems to defeat the purpose.
        
           | googlryas wrote:
           | A fixed decision tree isn't machine learning. If the tree can
           | be updated or generated by code, then sure, but a human just
           | writing a decision tree has nothing to do with machine
           | learning.
        
         | hash07e wrote:
        
           | chki wrote:
           | Please don't do this here.
        
             | hnbad wrote:
             | HN seems to be fine with race realists and antisemites
             | (just look at the person's recent comment history, they're
             | not the first one I've seen either) as long as they don't
             | go on excessively unhinged rants and resort to slurs. HN is
             | very much trying to be a "marketplace of ideas" with all
             | the faults and warts that come with being a marketplace
             | (e.g. false or misleading advertising).
        
               | chki wrote:
               | I think the comment in and of itself is not very
               | substantiated but that's not why I commented. The comment
               | I was replying to is a complete non-sequitur. The top-
               | level comment only mentioned "non western immigrants" in
               | passing by saying that they were _less_ likely to be
               | unemployed. To follow this with ranting about "non-
               | western immigrants" is simply not acting in good faith
               | and not adhering to the site guidelines, especially
               | 
               | >Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and
               | generic tangents.
        
               | hash07e wrote:
               | Please do refute. Personal attacks are not valid.
               | 
               | It is very strange that the same people that claim HN is
               | a techno/logical place when confronted with logic and
               | realism suffer from cognitive dissonance.
               | 
               | Please check [1] page 59.
               | 
               | [1] - https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_0
               | 1.c.61234...
        
               | krageon wrote:
               | It's not a personal attack to say that you have a
               | definite horse that you like to speak on ("race", as
               | nebulous and weird as that is). Above you have reframed
               | more or less the same thing as a culture issue, which has
               | been _widely_ discussed and is currently popularly
               | mitigated with education. We can see this works in
               | practice.
               | 
               | What more do you want? Justifications for why people move
               | out of their cultural frame to a different one? Perhaps
               | they value more rights for women (the middle east is out
               | then). Perhaps they enjoy a peaceful environment (again,
               | the middle east is out). There are so, so many reasons
               | someone might move away from their reference frame. Some
               | don't apply to the middle east. Some don't apply to Asia.
               | But they definitely apply to someone, somewhere.
               | 
               | I simply cannot believe you have not thought of this, but
               | to construct this narrative you must ignore these
               | realities for why people flee their own environment in
               | favour of a new (much more uncertain) one.
        
               | hash07e wrote:
               | _" I simply cannot believe you have not thought of this,
               | but to construct this narrative you must ignore these
               | realities for why people flee their own environment in
               | favour of a new (much more uncertain) one."_
               | 
               | I did not refer race.
               | 
               | I am not ignoring but I am alerting that them may be
               | BETTER served with cultures that conform with their
               | ideologies and aptitudes.
               | 
               | Why create a cultural shock? Why make the person struggle
               | to be accepted?
               | 
               | How many generations for me to be considered "japanese"?
               | Or I would force japanese to me consider one of them?
        
               | krageon wrote:
               | The racism thing is definitely a soapbox issue for this
               | person, which is a little distasteful to be sure. I do
               | not see any antisemitism.
        
             | hash07e wrote:
        
         | notahacker wrote:
         | > Immigrant/descendant: High risk of long term unemployment,
         | right away. (Edit: Apparently except non-western immigrants,
         | based on the source code!)
         | 
         | The latter part is probably on the basis that non-Western
         | immigrants mostly needed skilled worker visas, whereas
         | descendents and 'Westerners' (which apparently maps to "EU
         | members" in this case) don't. Though as with most of the rest
         | of it I'd struggle to see this as a conclusion from advanced
         | modelling and not just a stereotype kept relevant largely by
         | not asking the descendent or 'Westerner' what type of work
         | they'd been doing and how long they'd worked in Denmark
        
           | hash07e wrote:
           | If you look at [1] at page 59 you will see only 19% of men
           | and 7% of women from non western countries are working in
           | Germany.
           | 
           | This is after spending a LOT of money and political power.
           | 
           | [1] - https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.
           | 61234...
           | 
           | Note: the statistics are heavily censured and the language is
           | always to show "positive" like we increased xx% (from 10% to
           | 15%).
        
             | DoughnutHole wrote:
             | You've completely misrepresented the statements of that
             | document - it's specifically about _refugees_ , not all
             | "men and woman from non western countries".
             | 
             | Of course refugees are vastly more likely to be unemployed
             | - 2/3 came from the Syrian civil war and there's no
             | guarantee of entering the country with in-demand skills or
             | any understanding of the language.
             | 
             | Germany has 1.24 million refugees, but it has ~14 million
             | first-generation immigrants including over a million Turks.
             | People who immigrated _for work_ and had to apply for visas
             | are going to have completely different employment outcomes
             | than a surge of war refugees.
        
               | hash07e wrote:
               | So please provide the stats from "first-generation"
               | immigrants.
               | 
               | They are public right?
               | 
               | Right?
        
               | bildung wrote:
               | By law their residency was on the condition of employment
               | or self-employment, so close to 100% by definition.
               | Nowadays they are either naturalized (so no immigrants
               | anymore) or pensioned, or returned back home after their
               | work life ended, or already died. Keep in mind that this
               | immigration wave was 40 to 50 years ago.
               | 
               | And yes, all of this is easily findable public data.
        
               | hash07e wrote:
               | _" By law their residency was on the condition of
               | employment or self-employment, so close to 100% by
               | definition"_
               | 
               | That is a very strong "stimulus" to keep people working
               | and being integrated. Do we have the same today?
               | 
               |  _" And yes, all of this is easily findable public
               | data."_
               | 
               | Please may you provide the link with first-generation
               | employment status?
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | notahacker wrote:
             | I'm not sure why you think a statistic applying to a
             | different group (refugees are not all "non-Western
             | immigrants", especially not in Denmark) in a different
             | country in a different direction is particularly relevant.
             | 
             | Actually, scratch that, looking at your account history I
             | can see exactly why...
        
             | bildung wrote:
             | Germany is a bit special here because refugees often are
             | not allowed to work at all, or, depending on their status,
             | are only allowed to work under certain conditions. This was
             | introduced by the conservative parties as a juridical
             | answer to fears of immigrants "stealing" jobs.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | hash07e wrote:
               | Nope.
               | 
               | My cousin was able to get it right away.
               | 
               | Same happened in other countries as Sweden[1] and in
               | UAE[2]
               | 
               | The conservatives have no power in Germany the most they
               | can do is:
               | 
               | "We will SOMETIME in future make a coalition, but for now
               | we will stay here barking".
               | 
               | It is ok to confront narratives.
               | 
               | [1] - https://archive.is/oUsbj [2] -
               | http://saharareporters.com/2021/06/29/exclusive-uae-
               | suspends...
        
               | ginko wrote:
               | >The conservatives have no power in Germany
               | 
               | Did you somehow miss 16 years of conservative government
               | in Germany?
        
               | ChuckNorris89 wrote:
               | Conservative by German standards is pretty liberal by US
               | standards.
        
               | bildung wrote:
               | It's literally law, and has been for decades. See here,
               | directly from the federal government:
               | https://www.bmas.de/DE/Arbeit/Fachkraeftesicherung-und-
               | Integ...
        
               | hash07e wrote:
               | From google translator
               | 
               | 1. after three months for asylum seekers who are not
               | obliged to live in a reception facility,
               | 
               | 2. after six months of asylum seekers with minor
               | children,
               | 
               | 3. after nine months of asylum seekers without minor
               | children (even despite the obligation to live in a
               | reception facility).
               | 
               | Comparing to US A 565 Authorization to work in US is at
               | 6-9 months wait.
               | 
               | that study data was from 2016 onwards... There was enough
               | time..
        
               | bildung wrote:
               | Those are
               | 
               | * minimum times, i.e. they don't automatically have
               | rights afterwards, but have to obtain a permission for
               | working first ("Arbeitserlaubnis")
               | 
               | * those minimum times prolong as long as immigrants live
               | in special immigrant housing ("Aufnahmeeinrichtung"),
               | i.e. as long es they don't live in normal housing. Which
               | they can only get if the ministry grants them that (in my
               | town there are still quite a share of syrian immigrants
               | living in that kind of housing, not normal housing in
               | town).
               | 
               | * additionally, even after that, the employer has to show
               | that a) no German of comparable qualification wanted the
               | job, and b) no EU citizen of comparable qualification
               | wanted the job.
               | 
               | Edit:
               | 
               |  _> that study data was from 2016 onwards... There was
               | enough time.. _
               | 
               | "onwards" is only 2017. Your source only compares 2016 to
               | 2017. 2016 is the year when most syrian refugees arrived
               | in Germany. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%BCchtling
               | skrise_in_Deuts...
        
               | hash07e wrote:
               | even if you consider 11 months the data is still valid.
               | 
               | Are we moving goal post?
        
           | silvestrov wrote:
           | There are (compared to SV) very few asians in Denmark. They
           | also integrate well so the Danish "I don't have a job" system
           | isn't focused on them.
           | 
           | It is a long-standing taboo to split "non-Western" into
           | "middle east" and "asian". Avoiding the split makes the bad
           | numbers less noticeable.
        
       | Olphs wrote:
       | Is the "algorithm" that simple tree at the end? Really confusing
        
         | hampereddustbin wrote:
         | Maybe it is to bring about it's simplicity, or a sarcastic
         | tounge-in-cheek jab at it. The word "algorithm" doesen't really
         | distinguish it's complexity in any way. It's just a sequence of
         | steps.
        
         | yobbo wrote:
         | It's most likely a trained decision tree with binary output.
        
           | laputan_machine wrote:
           | Trained in what way? I'd have thought this was just a hard-
           | coded DT, it's multiple-choice questions all the way down
        
             | yobbo wrote:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_tree_learning
        
         | danuker wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_tree
        
       | bryanrasmussen wrote:
       | part of the reason I posted this is there has been some recent
       | controversy as to whether or not the algorithms used are racist
       | https://www.version2.dk/artikel/styrelse-frikendes-algoritmi...
       | 
       | translated to English
       | 
       | https://www-version2-dk.translate.goog/artikel/styrelse-frik...
       | 
       | on edit: changed where to are, not sure why I wrote where instead
       | of were, but there we go.
        
         | ClumsyPilot wrote:
         | If this algorythm was a fancy neural net, we wouldn't even be
         | able to inspect it and have this discussion
        
         | notahacker wrote:
         | Certainly it's difficult to imagine someone motivated by
         | accuracy rather than making political points about migrants
         | (and education and desire to work) concluding that what
         | industry people have worked in, the years of experience they
         | have, the level of seniority they've obtained, how much of
         | their previous work is in Denmark, previous salaries they've
         | earned and whether they're willing to take a lower paid job etc
         | are all less important than whether they're non-Western and
         | what their highest level of education is...
         | 
         | Admittedly, it's also the type of model you'd expect someone
         | working back from very limited available data to come up with,
         | but I struggle to believe it's a particularly accurate model
        
           | stevesimmons wrote:
           | They could well be the few factors that, in aggregate at a
           | population level, give the greatest explanatory power. And
           | which have then been roughly calibrated.
           | 
           | The resulting model can be well be accurate in aggregate for
           | informing policy decision tradeoffs. Just totally irrelevant
           | for an individual's particular circumstances...
        
             | notahacker wrote:
             | Suspect if they're getting more explanatory power from
             | which part of the world their family originated from than
             | any kind of indicator of actual employment history, it's
             | because they either don't have enough usable employment
             | history data or they badly misspecified the employment
             | history indicators. Agree that the macro model they have
             | might nevertheless be relevant to certain policy decisions,
             | but not individual ones.
        
         | jmeister wrote:
         | Very interesting. I'm working on visualization and
         | explainability of ML algorithms.
         | 
         | Thank you for posting this.
        
           | bryanrasmussen wrote:
           | I doubt it is a real ML algorithm, there is some discussion
           | of the algorithm in the comments, so it seems the one
           | currently in use is very downgraded from an earlier one that
           | had more variables but not quite sure about that part.
        
       | timvdalen wrote:
       | Turns out I'm at high risk of long term unemployment if I were to
       | move to Denmark...
        
         | smcl wrote:
         | Me too, not sure if I should be worried or if the algorithm is
         | a bit wonky. I am in my mid-30s, graduated with university
         | degree in a STEM field, and have been continuously employed
         | since I left university but filled it out as if I had just
         | quit. The summary after I entered everything showed the
         | following decision tree:
         | 
         | How quickly do you believe you will get a job: "Don't know"
         | (I've enough savings to carry me a couple of years, no rush)
         | 
         | Origin: "Western immigrant"
         | 
         | Verdict: high risk of long-term unemployment.
         | 
         | If the little summary is to be believed, there are no other
         | important factors. Changing my "Don't know" to 3 months reduced
         | me to "low risk of long-term unemployment". So if I'm not
         | mistaken, the main factor for their estimate for how long you
         | will be unemployed ... is _your_ estimate on how long you'll be
         | unemployed?
        
           | tokai wrote:
           | A bit wonky is a very mild way of putting it. Absolutely
           | garbage seems more precise.
        
           | timvdalen wrote:
           | I think we entered the exact same data!
        
           | mrweasel wrote:
           | It might be a case of the algorithm not being designed for
           | your case. If you work in IT, you most likely only have to
           | deal with the unemployment office is you've been hit by
           | stress and is trying to recover. The unemployment office
           | almost exclusively deal with people who are very reluctant to
           | seek employment or have other issues that might prevent them
           | from functioning in the job market (lack of education, mental
           | issues, health issues, language barriers and so on). That
           | does leave them with some funny interactions when someone
           | outside those categories show up.
           | 
           | A friend of my took a spent month, after getting hit masters
           | degree in CS, finding the right job. That meant that he need
           | to show up at the unemployment office. They where only able
           | to offer him a forklift certification, which he didn't need
           | or want. In the end they just left him alone for a month and
           | he found the job he wanted.
           | 
           | Overall the Danish unemployment office is remarkably bad at
           | finding jobs for people or even help them get better
           | qualifications. There's an entire book written about it
           | (based on one journalists experiences). In the book the only
           | person, that particular office found a job for is one they
           | hired themself.
        
       | recoveringeng wrote:
       | Dane here. Disclaimer: I can't say I really know much about this,
       | but here is a bit of background info:
       | 
       | STAR is acronym for Styrelsen for Arbejdsmarked og Rekrutering
       | (English: Agency for Labor Market and Recruitment).
       | 
       | They have a note describing the system (in Danish) at [1]. I
       | copy/pasted a few relevant sections to Google Translate at [2].
       | 
       | TL;DR: Algorithm is a decision tree based on questionnaires and
       | outcomes of about 152000 cases. The note states a precision of
       | 70% and a recall of 32%. There is no mention of a split between
       | modelling and test data.
       | 
       | [1] https://star.dk/media/12514/2020_01_31_beskrivelse_-
       | _profila...
       | 
       | [2]
       | https://translate.google.com/?sl=da&tl=en&text=Modellen%0APr...
        
       | YetAnotherNick wrote:
       | It missed the "How good are you at leetcode" question
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | hampereddustbin wrote:
         | Instead of a specific question that most of the working sector
         | is unfamiliar with, the form goes only by the field of study to
         | guess where you're working
        
           | martin_a wrote:
           | Seems like this joke got over your head. :-)
        
       | hawkeye424 wrote:
       | Wonder if the algorithm is based on this
       | 
       | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvsKIBSPfWw
       | 
       | movie ?
        
       | arghwhat wrote:
       | Dane here.
       | 
       | I know nothing about this particular "algorithm" or how it is
       | used, other than that it was to my knowledge meant for use in job
       | centers - i.e. it applies to someone who is already unemployed
       | and unable to find work on their own for whatever reason (we
       | should not judge, every life is different). In some cases, those
       | on social benefits are also forced to job centers despite their
       | condition, which might negatively affect this crude "algorithm"
       | as well.
       | 
       | In other words, it does not represent the job market or life in
       | Denmark as a whole. With a 2.5% unemployment rate that should be
       | more or less obvious.
       | 
       | Of course our job market has a degree of ageism, sexism and
       | racism (with the rather racist nationalist parties being popular
       | in some regions), unfortunate as it may be. A male, white Dane in
       | their 20s is likely going to have an easier time getting jobs
       | than a female foreigner in their early 30s, where the language
       | barrier, additional paperwork for work visa and non-zero risk of
       | maternity leave (can easily be 50 weeks, which is costly in
       | industries where the standard is full rather than partial salary)
       | may make a small company uncomfortable.
       | 
       | But while I cannot speak for industries I have never worked in,
       | industries that we are familiar with here on HN are fully
       | internationalized and would hire a foreigner in the blink of an
       | eye, and such a person would is unlikely to ever discover a job
       | centers.
       | 
       | TL;DR: don't worry about this crappy "algorithm".
        
         | mrweasel wrote:
         | > industries that we are familiar with here on HN are fully
         | internationalized and would hire a foreigner in the blink of an
         | eye
         | 
         | Small correction: Foreigners from within the EU. Many of the
         | Danish software companies have contracts with e.g. banks and
         | government organisations, that makes them nervous about taking
         | in people from outside the EU.
         | 
         | It depends very much on the company. It should be easy enough
         | to find someone willing to hire you, but many won't.
        
           | arghwhat wrote:
           | > Many of the Danish software companies have contracts with
           | e.g. banks and government organisations, that makes them
           | nervous about taking in people from outside the EU.
           | 
           | I actually meant outside EU. I do not know of any places that
           | would exclude foreigners due to government contracts. I see
           | no lack of foreign hires within fintech and medical, and the
           | usual government contract dumpsters (KMD, Netcompany, that
           | sort) also hire foreigners. I myself work in a place that
           | employs a lot of engineers from India on-site for example,
           | and I know many companies like it.
           | 
           | Foreigners from within EU will have easier paperwork and
           | living situation though.
        
       | Dave3of5 wrote:
       | I'm also high risk of unemployment if I ever moved to Denmark. Oh
       | well ...
        
       | filt wrote:
       | I tried it from my phone. A lot of the times, trying to sexpand
       | the select list moved me to the previous question.
       | 
       | After answering all of the questions, I came to a black and empty
       | section, scrolling down from there gave me an option to do the
       | test again.
        
         | kkarimi wrote:
         | Same, seems like not working on iPhone safari atleast
        
           | jonsen wrote:
           | Same on iPad Safari.
        
         | kgeist wrote:
         | My phone gave up and the browser crashed :)
        
       | larsnystrom wrote:
       | One of the named authors in the footer also wrote an article
       | about the STAR algorithm, which I think might provide some more
       | context: https://www.zetland.dk/historie/sOMVZ7qG-m8aLzmJK-94d1e
        
       | m00dy wrote:
       | I think Banks should also expose the internals of their credit
       | rating algorithms. Openness and transparency should be part of
       | new world order.
        
         | hampereddustbin wrote:
         | They might be afraid their algorithms would be too easy to
         | manipulate if you knew all of it's factors. Since testing the
         | all of the possible factors would be cost-prohibitive for most,
         | it's not exactly 1:1 with software development
        
           | justinclift wrote:
           | > They might be afraid ...
           | 
           | It's not really relevant what they're afraid of. They should
           | be made to be transparent, and it should be enforced when
           | they don't meet the mark.
        
             | hampereddustbin wrote:
             | Maybe I used the wrong wording. There may be legitimate
             | reasons for keeping it vague, because designing tamperproof
             | public metrics for credit approval has huge risks involved,
             | or they may be designed so conservatively that a lot
             | actually qualifying people would now be unable to get a
             | loan. I've personally been bitten by the latter despite
             | making nearly six figures.
             | 
             | Similarily I've not really seen any sites which publish how
             | their anti-spam filters work or what the treshold values
             | are either for similar reasons. They're possible to figure
             | out, but cost a lot more.
             | 
             | Maybe a better solution would be to somehow guarantee that
             | they're consistent with their own rules, and regularly
             | audited so that they're also compliant with the current
             | law?
        
       | kzrdude wrote:
       | This all seems a bit backwards but I guess we're just looking at
       | a visualisation of the algorithms.
       | 
       | The "forwards" part would be to look at risk factors and how to
       | mitigate or improve those points. Of course together with the
       | unemployment office.
        
         | DocTomoe wrote:
         | If you talk to unemployment offices, worldwide, that's pretty
         | easy: accept any job, for any salary. There's always work in
         | the sulphur mines.
         | 
         | It's better to try and improve yourself without involvement by
         | biased and agenda-ed state actors. Maybe with a coach. But not
         | with g-men.
        
           | kzrdude wrote:
           | The ideas behind Reagan's quote "I'm from the Government and
           | I'm here to help." is the most damaging meme in american
           | politics
        
       | qwerty456127 wrote:
       | Just a fun fact: ~90% people outside academia I ever knew had
       | jobs unrelated to their formal education so the questions about
       | education level and field always seemed pointless to me.
        
         | BlargMcLarg wrote:
         | Most questions are pointless and have almost no evidence behind
         | them. Doesn't stop hiring from believing they know better.
        
           | qwerty456127 wrote:
           | Why isn't anybody trying to fix the system so it would be
           | more efficient at directing people to the jobs they would be
           | actually good and happy at? To me it seems this (using the
           | human resources the optimal way) becomes more and more
           | important nowadays. And I believe the formal education one
           | has completed can only serve as a hint to what the best job
           | for him is and not a direct definition of that.
        
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