These days, the career paths that people are following can be increasingly complicated. Job seekers are always looking to optimize their own skill sets, while recruiters are constantly on the hunt for the best talent around the world.  Some completely rely on data while others look to mirror the habits and routines of iconic figures.  Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Chief Talent Scientist at ManpowerGroup and co-founder of Deeper Signals, recently joined the DataRobot More Intelligent Tomorrow podcast,, hosted by Ben Taylor, Chief AI Evangelist at DataRobot, to cut through the career folklore and explain how data and AI can better help both individuals and organizations predict human performance.

Beware of Falling for the Narrative Fallacy and Telling the Truth 100% of the Time

Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic starts by warning that worrying about AI replicating humans is looking at the wrong side of the coin. 

“In a way, humans are trying to become like machines and AI at the same time. You can see all these articles about how long Elon Musk sleeps for, and how many jobs people can have at the same time, and optimizing and maximizing for efficiency and your time.”

He further sounds the alarm against falling for the Sirens’ Call of mimicking the habits of world-famous CEOs and artists:

“When people say Steve Jobs was obnoxious and he was a narcissist, that he fell out with everyone, and was parking his car in the disabled car parking spot and behaving like a really obnoxious and despicable guy, that doesn’t mean that if you do that, you’re going to found Apple or be Steve Jobs. Equally, Miles Davis and John Coltrane were addicted to heroin at some point. But if you take heroin, you probably won’t produce Kind of Blue.”

Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic also advises practicing self-deception:

“I even think that if you are unable to lie to yourself, you’re gonna have a miserable and depressing existence. It’s useful to lie to yourself and to others. The better you are at lying to yourself, the less you need to worry about lying to others, because you believe your own B.S.”

Our Complex World Renders People Incapable of Identifying Real Talent and Negatively Effects Gender Advice

Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic also touches on the paradox of how our complicated world is actually diluting talent evaluation processes and negatively impacting gender roles. 

“As the world becomes more complex, people are less capable of identifying actual talent, so they focus more on style, less on substance. And when you’re male and you are deluded or self-deceived, people will attribute those behaviors and those delusions to actual talent and potential. Whereas if women display a surplus of confidence and even arrogance, they’re punished for it and seen as pathologically ambitious. The irony is that so much of gender-centric advice is actually focused on making women as deluded and overconfident as men—as opposed to lowering men’s confidence so that it aligns with their actual abilities.” 

Democratizing Data-Driven and Evidence-Based Feedback Is Key to Better Career Decisions 

Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic, Professor of Business Psychology at both University College London, and Columbia University, drew upon inspiration from his university research programs to co-found the Deeper Signals platform, which uses AI to unlock accurate, personal insights through innovative assessments.

“Our goal or mission is very straightforward: (it) is to democratize data-driven feedback to ensure that every person in the world has data-driven and evidence-based feedback on their potential so that they can make better career decisions wherever they are.”

Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic illustrates the potential to better understand people with a combination of  advanced psychometrics or behavioral science and AI and machine learning, and claims that his platform can give you “a very comprehensive picture of your potential, including your leadership and management skills, capabilities, and it can offer you a wide range of interests or values-driven career paths.” 

To hear more about how AI and data-driven tools are helping people make better life and career decisions, check out Datarobot.com/podcast or http://datarobot.buzzsprout.com/. You can also listen everywhere you already enjoy podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.