Anaëlle Beignon / Cyber Resume

Cyber Resume

This is an installation that has been exposed during the mirage festival, a digital art oriented event based in Lyon. The code of the project was developped by Kevin Venitti, and can be found here in free access.

Duration

1 month

Year

2016

Partners

Kevin Venitti

Tags

Interaction design Installation Prototype Critical Design Privacy

In order to help recruiters overloaded with work and applicants, I propose to applicants a machine that allows them to print a digital life CV themselves, allowing their potential recruiter to save a lot of time in his or her research for the model employee from all angles.

This device is intended for all people looking for a job, and having a little compassion for the busy schedule of the recruiters of their future company. This can only be appreciated. This project falls within a process of critical design, it aims to question the impact of the personal informations we make visible on internet. It is also a critical of the direction which takes the recruitment in terms of respect of the potential incoming employes.

Today, our identity is as much about the virtual as it is about the real. Thus, we create profle on profle in various and varied sites, we accumulate ratings, stars, likes, subscribers, we feed news feeds and are fed by them. This results in a representation of us that we make visible. This virtual representation is now taking on real importance in the labour market. Indeed, more than a half of recruiters would regularly visit the Facebook profle of job applicants to get an idea of them. When we know that many factors due to discrimination are taken into account in the employment sector, we can ask ourselves the question of the ethics of such practices. In addition to recruitment, dismissals for comments made on Facebook, for example, are regularly recorded. Internet research would therefore reveal a secret identity, or at least an identity hidden from the employer. Indeed, this secret identity often results from the private framework made public, mixing with more offcial information put online, this time for the professional world. As a result, a person is not only recruited on his or her professional skills, but also on a personal and relational profle.

This installation has been exposed during the mirage festival, a digital art oriented event based in Lyon. The interaction with the public was extremely interesting. Indeed, people we more interested by privacy issue than by the recruitment feld. Having their personal data printed seemed to make them realize easier that there was crucial information about them on internet, accessible in only few minutes for any body. Some of them deleted informations or old accounts just after being awared of them being visible. Something which stroke me was a child, about 10 years old, which printed a page with already a photo of him, and some accurate informations. He was really impressed, and his mother really surprised. Another unpredicted reaction was people printing resumes for absent relatives or friends. The object has a value for some of them, beyond the information provided (that can be found on the frst page of google).

Blueprint of the way the data is transiting during the installation.