For his Ph.D. in astrophysics, Chris Farrell spent five years mining data from a giant particle accelerator. Now, he spends his days analyzing ratings for Yelp Inc. YELP -0.90% s online business-review site.克里斯法雷尔(Chris Farrell)在修读天体物理学博士的五年期间专门从事巨型粒子加速器数据研究工作。如今，他的工作是分析商业评论网站Yelp上的评论。Mr. Farrell, 28 years old, is a data scientist, a job title that barely existed three years ago but since has become one of the hottest corners of the high-tech labor market. Retailers, banks, heavy-equipment makers and matchmakers all want specialists to extract and interpret the explosion of data from Internet clicks, machines and smartphones, setting off a scramble to find or train them.现年28岁的法雷尔是一名数据科学家。

三年前，“数据科学家”这个职业头衔完全还不不存在，但后来渐渐沦为高科技劳动力市场上最热门的职位之一。面临互联网页面、机器和智能手机产生的数据发生爆炸，零售商、银行、重型设备制造商以及媒介公司都想要让专业人士来萃取、理解大数据。这引发了一场找寻或培训这方面人才的争夺战。People call them unicorns because the combination of skills required is so rare, said Jonathan Goldman, who ran LinkedIn Corp.s LNKD +0.66% data-science team that in 2007 developed the People You May Know button, which five years later drove more than half of the invitations on the professional-networking platform.LinkedIn Corp.数据科学团队的负责人乔纳森戈德曼(Jonathan Goldman)说道，人们把他们称为“独角兽”，因为这个职位所必须的综合技能是如此独有。

该团队在2007年研发了“你有可能了解的人”功能。在此后的五年里，LinkedIn这个人才网络平台上半数以上的“邀”都是由该功能发动的。

Employers say the ideal candidate must have more than traditional market-research skills: the ability to find patterns in millions of pieces of data streaming in from different sources, to infer from those patterns how customers behave and to write statistical models that pinpoint behavioral triggers.企业雇员们称之为，该职位的理想候选人不仅要享有传统的市场调研技能，还必须不具备以下能力：有能力从来自有所不同来源的上百万块数据中找到模式，然后通过这些模式来推测客户不道德，找准消费行为的启动时点并写涉及的统计资料模型。At e-commerce site operator Etsy Inc., for instance, a biostatistics Ph.D. who spent years mining medical records for early signs of breast cancer now writes statistical models to figure out the terms people use when they search Etsy for a new fashion they saw on the street.以在电子商务网站Etsy Inc.供职的数据科学家为事例，一名生物统计学博士过去几年里通过挖出医疗记录来研究乳腺癌的初期征兆，现在这名人员为Etsy撰写统计资料模型，推测人们在Etsy上用什么样的词条来搜寻自己在大街上看见的时尚新品。At mobile-payments startup Square Inc., a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology who wrote statistical models to examine how people change their political beliefs now looks for behavioral patterns that would identify which merchants are more likely to have clients demand their money back.在移动支付初创公司Square Inc.，一位撰写统计资料模型、研究人们政治信仰如何变化的理解心理学博士，现在专门研究人们的不道德模式，从而辨别哪些零售商更加有可能遇上顾客拒绝退款。

Another 28-year-old at Yelp, with a Ph.D. in applied mathematics, turned his dissertation research on genome mapping into a product used by the companys advertising team. The same genome-mapping algorithm is now used to measure the effect on consumers when multiple small changes are made to online ads.Yelp另一名28岁的应用于数学博士把他的研究方向从基因图谱改向了该公司广告团队所用的一款产品。同一种基因演算法现在被用作量度对在线广告展开多项微小调整不会给消费者带给什么样的影响。Academia is slow and only a few people see your work, said Scott Clark, who designed the genome-mapping algorithm. At Yelp, I can be pushing out experiments that affect hundreds of millions of people. When I make a small change to the Yelp website, I have a bigger impact.这种基因演算法的设计者克拉克(Scott Clark)回应，做到学术的过程很漫长，只有少数一些人能看见你的成果。

他说道：“在Yelp，我前进的实验可以影响上亿人。我对Yelp网站做到一些小改动，影响毕竟极大的。”Some such experiments have raised alarms. Facebook Inc. FB -0.15% was recently in the spotlight for an experiment in which its data-science team sought to manipulate peoples emotions by altering the content of their news feeds.这类实验中也有一部分引起了忧虑。

Facebook Inc.近期就倍受注目，因为其数据科学团队展开的一项实验企图通过改动信息流的内容来操纵人们的情绪。Christian Rudder, president of IAC/InterActiveCorp.s OkCupid dating site, recently disclosed in a blog post that the site manipulated its feeds by inflating the likelihood that any two people were a match, to encourage them to use the service more.IAC/InterActiveCorp.旗下约会网站OkCupid的总裁拉德(Christian Rudder)近期在一篇博客中透露，该网站通过高估两位用户的匹配度来操纵信息流，以此希望用户更好地用于其服务。Mr. Goldman, who now heads a new data-science group at Intuit Inc., INTU +0.67% said employers go to great lengths to land top talent. They must be ready to extend an offer at a moments notice, often within a day or two of interviewing a candidate, and be prepared to meet candidates at any hour of the day or night.目前在财捷集团(Intuit Inc., INTU)率领一个新的数据科学团队的戈德曼说道，雇员都在不遗余力地召募顶尖人才。

他们必需准备好随时收到任用通报，一般来说是在试镜一位候选人之后的一两天内，而且还要打算在白天或晚上的任何时候谒见候选人。While a six-figure starting salary might be common for someone coming straight out of a doctoral program, data scientists with just two years experience can earn between $200,000 and $300,000 a year, according to recruiters.招聘者说道，对于一个刚刚取得博士学位的人来说，六位数的起薪有可能很平时，同时只有两年工作经验的数据科学家就可以赚20万至30万美元的年薪。Anyone with data science in his or her job title on a LinkedIn page is going to get 100 recruiter emails a day, said Josh Sullivan, who leads a 500-person data-science group at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. BAH +0.86% To woo candidates, Mr. Sullivan goes for a personal touch: sending handwritten letters and flying across the country to meet potential employees spouses. He also sends care packages filled with chocolate, as well as books on academic topics such as statistics and computer science that he knows the recruit is interested in.博思艾伦咨询控股公司(Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp.)的沙利文(Josh Sullivan)说道，任何人，只要其LinkedIn页面上的职务名称有“数据科学”的字眼，每天将不会接到100位招聘者的电子邮件。沙利文目前在博思艾伦带领一个500人的数据科学团队。

为了更有候选人，沙利文不会用于私人认识的方式：收到手写信件，乘飞机与潜在雇员的未婚见面。他还不会寄出装进巧克力的爱心包覆以及学术书籍，比如他告诉受聘者感兴趣的统计资料和计算机科学方面的书籍。

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