Data collection at the job fair

Last weekend I went to a tech recruitment event, and I was little shocked at how badly some employers did data-collection.

When enquiring about potential employers, people have a vague expectation of privacy. This is lost when:

  1. Data collection is adding your details to a sign-up sheet, with the ability to see the details of everyone who did so before you
  2. Data collection is adding yourself as contact on an iPad. This has all the problems of solution 1, but with the ability to send any contacts you like while you’re entering your data

Finally, don’t collect what you don’t need. Do you need to capture gender? And if you do, consider that for some people the options might not be as simple as “Male/Female”.