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Table of Contents

Introduction 01

Research & The Researcher: 03

Everything is Predictable

How Dangerous is Big Data? 06

The Often-Forgotten Component

I am Mr. Brexit 13

Parting Note 16
Whats Next
Hello there,
We have often spoke about Psychometric Assessments, at length. Its the new buzzword
in the business world, especially in the realm of Human Resources. This is something that
done right affects an organizations employee life cycle, and yet not many people know
of it in its entirety.

The aura of mystery around it is hardly surprising, especially considering our frequent
interactions with people in the industry. Some know of it in vague detail, some adopt it

Data
purely out of curiosity and a gene for experimentation, others disregard its merits
altogether. Its something were used to.

However, while weve often found ourselves educating the people we sell to, there is a
lot left unexplained yet. But with our venture to make our assessments better and
sharper, especially with a blend of big data, we found ourselves compelled to write this
piece.

It'll be short and sweet, nothing to worry about there. But walking out of this, we
guarantee that you will have a deeper understanding of the word organizational &
cultural fitment. Yes, we use it on you quite often with little explanation behind it. After
all, people do prefer a no-nonsense approach.

1 I NTR O D U C TIO N
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

The message here is different, though. Were not here to sell, but to
convince you of its merits. So, if in the future, you choose to use
psychometric assessments regardless of whether it is Mettl made,
you understand what youre getting yourselves into.

Yes, this is your one stop guide for the immediate future. How are

Lets get to the

we going to do it, you may ask? Well, there are two things almost
everyone in the world has heard of by now the Trump Presidential
victory and Brexit, the term commonly used to define the United

fun stuff then,

Kingdoms prospective withdrawal from the European Union.

A little research on the former would reveal how it was unlikely that

shall we?
Trump had any chance of winning whatsoever. It was a miracle,
despite losing by around 3 million votes in the popular vote.
However, the beauty of it lay in numbers, analytics, big data, and
psychometrics.

In all honesty, having learned of all this, we stopped to realize how

the Trump campaign was more impressive and phenomenal than
miracle. It was an engineered and patient victory. And yes, apt
psychometric profiling that helped target the right audience made it
happen.

2 I NTR O D U C TIO N
Research & The Researcher:
Everything is Predictable
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

The human brain can deploy a
wide range of strategies while
playing chess, but were still
easily beaten by computers that
analyse all the possible next
moves.
Now, its only natural for one to assume why were quoting
an assistant professor of all people. However, the man was
previously a post-doc at Stanfords Computer Science
Department, the Deputy Director of the University of
Cambridge Psychometrics Centre [1], and a researcher at
Microsoft Research.
Trust us when we say that he is the man to quote for this
eBook. Well be honest when we say that we hadnt heard
of him prior November 9; it is also likely to assume that

Kosinski himself had failed to clutch onto the idea of his potential fame before that time.

Michal Kosinski Onto November 9, though; Michal Kosinski woke in the Hotel Sunnehus in Zurich. The
34-year-old researcher had arrived to give a lecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Associate Professor in Technology (ETH) about the dangers of Big Data and the digital revolution.
Organizational Behaviour
at Stanford School of Obviously, we jumped at the opportunity to study this man further at the mention of digital
revolution. And, if youre frequent readers of our content, then you would know about the
Business
vocal nature of our advocacy for the same.

We discovered that Kosinski provided lectures on this topic all over the world, and quite often
at that, as a leading expert in psychometrics a data-driven sub-branch of psychology. But
we retrace once more to that fated date in November, at around 8:30AM, when the
bombshell exploded on the television that morning.

4 R ES EA R C H & THE R ESE ARCHER

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Yes, contrary to forecasts by all leading statisticians, Donald J.
Trump had been elected president of the United States. In fact, for a
long time, Kosinski watched the Trump victory celebrations and the
results that came in from each state.
There was a hunch, and Kosinski could almost smell with certainty
that the outcome of the election might have something to do with his
research. On the same day, a then little-known British company
based out of London sent out a press release:
We are thrilled that our revolutionary
approach to data-driven communication has
played such an integral part in President-Elect
Trumps extraordinary win.
But thats a conversation for a different time. The press release
quoted Alexander James Ashburner Nix directly. British, 41
years old, and the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, thats who
Nix was; always immaculately attired in tailor-made suits and
designer glasses. His company wasnt just integral to Trumps online
campaign, but to the UKs Brexit campaign as well.
And thus, we have the stage set, having introduced everyone of
relevance. Of these three players reflective Kosinski, carefully
groomed Nix, and grinning Trump one of them enabled the
digital revolution, one of them executed it, and one of them
benefited from it.
This was from the union of Psychometrics and Big Data, which
clearly brings to question...Ah, please keep the pages turning to
find out.

Got to give it to them. It was truly an extraordinary win, and to

uncover the role of science behind the curtains, made it all the more
savoury for us as a technology firm in the same line of business.
While we do cater to a different audience altogether, the effort
resembled what we often do for organizations from different
industries.

5 R ES EA R C H & THE R ESE ARCHER

How Dangerous is
Big Data?

The
Often-Forgotten
Component
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Anyone who hasnt spent the last five years on another planet ought
to be familiar with the term Big Data. In essence, it reveals that
everything we do, both online and offline, leaves digital traces a
footprint if you may.
This is far reaching, to the point that every movement we make when
our mobile phone is in our pocket, every search we type into
Google, every purchase we make with our cards, and every like
even, is stored. Especially the likes.
What are we talking about? Why, Facebook, of course. For a long
time, it was entirely unclear as to what use this data could possibly
have. Well, perhaps in ad placement based on what we search for.
On November 9, though, it became largely clear that maybe much
more is possible. Cambridge Analytica, the company behind
Trumps online campaign the same company that worked for
Leave.EU in the early stages of its Brexit was a Big Data company.
7 H OW DA NGER O U S IS BI G DATA?
But to understand the outcome of the election, and how
communication of political nature might work in the future, its
essential to trace the incident to a certain strangeness in 2014. This,
at Kosinskis Psychometrics Centre.
Interchangeably used with the word psychographics, psychometrics
focuses on measuring psychological traits such as personality. In the
1980s, two teams of psychologists developed a model that sought
to assess human beings based on five personality traits known as
the Big 5.
Were back in familiar territory here. After all, this is what our
Psychometric Assessment, the Mettl Personality Profiler and the
Mettl Personality Inventory are based on:
 O PEN N ESS (O )
How Open Are You to New Experiences?

CONSC IENT IOUS N ESS (C) N EU R OT I C I S M ( N)

How much of a Perfectionist Are You? How Easily Upset Are You?

The Big 5

EXTROVERSION ( E) AG R EEA BL EN ES S ( A)
How Sociable Are You? How Considerate & Cooperative Are You?
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Based on these dimensions, they are known as OCEAN. Rather
convenient for it to spell out that way, but there is little denying that
the world is a fascinating place. These traits are likely to help us
make a relatively accurate assessment of the kind of person in front
of us.
This includes finer details such as said persons needs and fears,
how they are likely to behave. Yes, unsurprisingly, the Big 5 has
become the standard technique behind psychometrics. But for the
longest time, the problem with this approach was data collection.
Why?
Simply because, it involved filling out a complicated, highly
personal questionnaire. But, then came the internet. Then came
Facebook, and then Kosinski.
In 2008, Michal Kosinski joined fellow student David Stillwell for his
PhD program at Cambridge University. This was approximately a
year after Stillwell had launched a little Facebook application in the
days when the platform had not yet become the behemoth it is
today.
9 H OW DA NGER O U S IS BI G DATA?
Their MyPersonality app enabled users to fill out different
psychometric questionnaires, including a handful from the Big 5
personality questionnaire. And naturally, based on the evaluation,
users received a personality profile, and could opt-in to share their
Facebook profile data with the researchers.
Kosinski expected merely a few dozen college friends to fill in the
questionnaire, but before long, hundreds, thousands, then millions of
people had revealed their innermost convictions. All of a sudden,
the two doctoral candidates owned the largest dataset combining
psychometric scores with Facebook profiles ever to be collected.
The approach designed by Kosinski and his colleagues over the next
few years was quite simple. First, they provided test subjects with a
questionnaire in the form of an online quiz. From their responses,
the psychologists calculated personal Big 5 values of respondents.
Kosinskis team later compared said results with all sorts of other
online data: what they liked, shared or posted on Facebook. This
went deeper in to analyse gender, age, and place of residence
specified. Researchers could use this goldmine to connect the dots
and make correlations.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Soon enough, the study of simple online actions could make
remarkably reliable deductions. Men who liked the cosmetics brand
MAC were slightly more likely to be gay; one of the stronger
indicators of heterosexuality was liking Wu-Tang Clan an
American hip hop group from New York City.
People who enjoyed Philosophy tended towards
introversion, while followers of Lady Gaga tended
towards extroversion.
While small pieces of such information are too weak to produce
reliable predictions, tens, hundreds, or thousands of individual data
points when combined make the resulting predictions supremely
accurate.
Kosinski and his team tirelessly refined their models, and the fruition
revealed itself in the form of 68 Facebook likes.
SKIN COMPLEXION
95%
SEXUAL ORIENTATION
88%
AFFILIATION TO DEMOCRATIC OR REPUBLICAN VIEWS
85%
It didnt stop there though; intelligence, religious beliefs, alcohol,
cigarette and drug use could all be determined. Kosinski continued
to work on the models with an unwavering determination, and
before long, he could evaluate a person as well as a psychic could.
The stats chalked up to the total number of likes, and Kosinski could
read a person much better than the average work colleague merely
based on 10 Facebook likes. Seventy likes were enough to surpass
what a persons friends knew, 150 to outdo his or her parents, and
300 to go farther than said persons significant other.

To give you a clue, Kosinkis tests could provide great insight into a
More Facebook likes than that could even surpass what a person
person to a fairly accurate margin. Take the following for example:
thought they knew about themselves. Its creepy now that you think
about it, how a stranger could know so much simply by observing
remotely.

10 H OW DA NGER O U S IS BI G DATA?
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Our smartphone is a vast psychological
questionnaire that we are constantly filling out,
both consciously and unconsciously.
Hero of Our Story,
Michal Kosinki
It was no more about the likes or even Facebook though, Kosinski
and his team could now ascribe Big 5 values based on how many
profile pictures a person had on Facebook. But did one question
snatch your attention more than the rest; the one about how we
leave digital footprints offline?
Well, the motion sensor on our phone reveals how quickly we move
and how far we travel, which correlated with emotional stability.
But the true magic lies in how this became the key to unlocking a
world of miracles it worked in reverse. Not only could
psychological profiles be created from your data, but your data
could be used the other way around to search for specific profiles:
anxious parents, angry introverts, or perhaps even undecided
democrats?
11 H OW DA NGER O U S IS BI G DATA?
Ah, you see now how this could influence the Presidential Elections,
even. Kosinski had technically invented a People Search Engine.
But at a point, Kosinski had begun to wonder about what would
happen if someone abused his people search engine to manipulate
people? Soon there were several warnings to most of his scientific
work. However, not many seemed to grasp at what he meant by
could post a threat to an individuals well-being, freedom, or even
life.
In 2014, a representative from a mysterious company named SCL
approached Kosinski about his research. This story just took a turn
for the better. Now, who exactly owns SCL and its diverse branches
remained unclear thanks to a convoluted corporate structure.
To a certain degree, it was known that some of the SCL offshoots
were involved in helping the Nepalese monarch against rebels [2],
and in developing methods to influence Easter European and
Afghan citizens for NATO [3].
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

In 2013, SCL spun off a new company to participate in the US elections. Any guesses? No? Oh, come
on! Cambridge Analytica.

Just to add a little spice to the story though, Kosinski had begun to suspect that SCL might have
reproduced the Facebook likes based Big 5 measurement tool. This was an effort to control the election,
and Kosinski cut off all ties with the company representative, Aleksandr Kogan, upon such suspicions.

Aleksandr though, moved to Singapore, married, and changed his name to Dr. Spectre [4]. Of course,
this had to happen. But the spice had yet to flavour this story.

12 H OW DA NGER O U S IS BI G DATA?
I am Mr. Brexit

- Donald J. Trump
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
In November 2015, the more radical of the two Brexit campaigns,
Leave.EU supported by Nigel Farage announced that it had
commissioned a Big Data company to support its online campaign:
Cambridge Analytica along with their innovative political marketing
microtargeting by measuring peoples personality from their
digital footprints based on the OCEAN model.
We love dates though, and fast forward to September 19, 2016, just
over a month before the US elections, and we find ourselves at the
Concordia Summit. Some call it the miniature World Economic
Forum. With decision makers from all over the world present, a
smooth female voice welcomed the CEO of Cambridge Analytica,
Alexander Nix. [5]
Many in attendance knew that this was Trumps new digital strategy
man. A few weeks prior the Summit, Trump had somewhat
cryptically tweeted, Soon youll be calling me Mr. Brexit. And
yes, the man does tend to tweet, a lot.
Political observers had indeed noticed some striking similarities
between Trumps agenda and that of the right-wing Brexit
movement, but few noticed the connection with Trumps recent hiring
of marketing company Cambridge Analytica.
14 IA M MR. B R EXIT
At Cambridge, we were able to form a model
to predict the personality of every single adult
in the United States of America.
Alexander Nix
CEO of Cambridge Analytica
Per Nix, the success of Cambridge Analyticas marketing is based
on a combination of three elements: behavioural science using the
OCEAN Model, Big Data Analysis, and Ad Targeting. More on
targeting, the whole concept is based on personalized advertising
aligned as accurately as possible to the personality of an individual
consumer.
Nix explained that his company simply bought personal data from
a range of different sources such as land registries, automotive data,
shopping data, bonus cards, club memberships, and more. This was
the first step followed by data aggregation that helped calculate Big
5 personality profiles.
Suddenly, digital footprints become real people with fears, needs,
interests and residential addresses. In preparation of the campaign,
Nix had his company profile the personality of every adult in the
United States of America all 220 Million people.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Trumps striking inconsistencies, resulting array of contradictory messages, and his much-criticized
fickleness suddenly turned out to be the mans greatest asset a different message for every
voter. In fact, Trump acted like a perfectly opportunistic algorithm following audience reactions
was something mathematician Cathy ONeil observed in August 2016. [6]

These dark posts, or rather sponsored Facebook posts that could only be seen
by users with specific profiles included videos aimed at African Americans in
which Hilary Clinton refers to black men as predators.

Trump and Cambridge Analytica perfectly
engineered Clintons demise, and it was done via
manoeuvres unbeknownst to most.
Mettl had often employed similar technology to
How Clinton identify candidates perfectly suited to companies;
detailed analytics and psychometric profiles that
Voters were would result in a string of perfect hires, leadership
being targeted by Trumps digital troops
was not entirely visible, because they
attacked less on mainstream TV and more
with personalized messages on social
media or digital TV.
It did affect the elections, this Cambridge
Analytica model that somewhat moulded

Moved Away succession, and more. itself to remember the Kosinski model. But
to what extent, when asked, the company

from the This was later improved to develop Campus

Scorecards that would reveal profiles based on the
Ballot Box Big 5 Models, acceptable levels of pay,
demographic preferences, company affinity and
more, to help organizations target and hire better.
Just how precisely the American population was
remained unwilling to share. It is also quite
possible that the question is impossible to
answer.
Having said all this, there is merely one
more question left to answer.

15 IA M MR. B R EXIT
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Michal Kosinski was one of the small group of researchers that pioneered the
marriage between psychometry and big data. When asked whether he believed big
data had won the day for Trump, he most certainly had an answer.

Obviously, it is not big data analytics that wins elections. Candidates do. We dont
know how much his victory was helped by big data analytics.

Youll never hear this blunt message from companies that peddle Kosinskis methods
to politicians. At the end of the day, what Cambridge Analytica sells is not exactly
snake oil, but there is no denying that data science and its applications to psychology
are promising fields.

But just like artificial intelligence or, say, the blockchain, they arent drop dead killer

Whats Next? applications that ensure political or business success. Its the same for our technology
as well; meaning our solutions no matter how technologically advanced could never
replace human intervention.

The point of these resources is to merely help make smarter, more data-driven
decisions, where instinct predominantly ruled.

So, just how much more did you augment your knowledge about psychometric
assessments? Do tell us. And if at all, youd like to have a call with us about our
solutions, do not hesitate. Were a friendly bunch of conversationalists.

Yes, you have the information, and what you might do with it lies in your hands alone.
Godspeed!
 mettl.com

What is Mettl?
Mettl is a Saas based assessment platform that enables organizations
to create customized assessments for use across the entire employee
lifecycle, beginning with pre-hiring screening and candidate skills
assessment, training and development programs for
employees/students, certification exams, contests and more.

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