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Unlike other dating sites, eHarmony doesn't allow users to check out who has the cutest picture; rather, users must fill out lengthy questionnaires. Then the software yenta serves up the matches it believes will have staying power. In June, research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that eHarmony-produced marriages were more resilient than those forged through other means. Some skeptics questioned the findings' significance, wondering if eHarmony simply attracts the very people who are already most committed to the idea of marital stability. But the study does pose a provocative idea. "These data suggest that the Internet may be altering the dynamics and outcomes of marriage itself," wrote John Cacioppo, a neuroscientist and the study's lead author.
The eHarmony of Jobs
In the less emotional world of hiring, eHarmony thinks its special sauce can be applied more effectively than conventional approaches. And it is not alone. Paul Basile, the CEO of recruiting service Matchpoint Careers, is among the many contenders who already pitch their startup as the "eHarmony of jobs" (a phrase with 17,900 Google hits). Basile says that just as barflies are too quick to elope with the guy or girl with the great smile and a shared affinity for Indian food, companies also focus on traits that just don't matter.
And the real shocker is that education and experience are worth surprisingly little, says Basile. Cognitive ability, personality traits and the nebulous notion of "cultural fit" produce a better candidate. Basile tests for each but concedes that the data is still squishy on the culture question. "Fit is not nearly as well developed as the other topics," he says.
That could be a problem for Basile, because the consensus among recruiting startups seems to be that while fit is the most ill-defined of factors, it may well be the most important in reducing churn. Amy Kristof-Brown, an expert on "person-environment fit" at the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa, found that an optimal fit reduces turnover and predicts whether an applicant will be a "good organizational citizen," going above and beyond the basic job requirements.
The Corporate-Culture Quest
When Brent Daily quit his job five years ago--a bad fit--he began looking into Kristof-Brown's research. He called her and learned that her work was floating around academia but that few businesses had acted on it. "It floored me," he recalls. "It was too good to be collecting dust." Daily co-founded a company called RoundPegg (which counts Kristof-Brown as an adviser) that is dedicated to hacking this question of what it means to fit a company's culture.
We're familiar, by now, with stories about how Google employees whisk to the cafeteria on their scooters for a glass of agua fresca. But is this corporate culture? If you like to play tennis and a company lets you wear shorts to the office, is that sufficient to determine a fit?