A Mission to End Career HookupsA）Neil Clark Warren has a bold ambition．He wants “people to have a job they love and a marriage they wouldn’t change for anything”．For the 79-year-old founder and chief executive of dating site eHar-mony now wants to match job hunters with employers．
B）The dating marketplace is crowded．Online dating，once stigmatized（使受耻辱），is now main-sffeam. Eharmony，founded in 2000，today competes with niche sites catering for users from vegetarians to Ayn Rand fans，as well as social media and apps such as Tinder．Though Dr．Warren patently sees his site，which claims to have been responsible for 600，000 marriages，as a cut above those facilitating mere hookups．“Tinder and eHarmony are in two different businesses．Tinder is very superficial；it’s based on looks．’’
C）Dr．Warren wants to broaden eHarmony’s appeal and become a “relationship company”．Not just making love and job matches but also fixing retirees up with advisers and the isolated with friends．He sees loneliness as one of the biggest problems in modem society．Technology，he concedes，is a double-edged sword，both contributing to and combating isolation．
D）But first he is going after the jobs giants，Linkedln and Monster．In December eHarmony’s subsidiary Elevated Careers will launch in the US．Dr．Warren believes there is an untapped market of unfulfilled professionals．“0ver 70 percent of employees identify themselves as not engaged or actively disengaged from theft jobs．We think we Call reduce the amount of turnover and raise the level of productivity for companies by matching candidates with the right job，in the right career，with the right company．’’He insists he can counter the modem career pattern of serial jobs in multiple companies and turn employees monogamous（一夫一妻制）．The fallout of those who flit from job to job is far-reaching, he says．His wife’s father, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate，moved jobs 17 times．“That has an impact”, he says．“When a person is unhappy at their job，it affects their home fife，their marriage，their personal relationships，and their relationships with their co-workers．[It has]a negative effect on the productivity of the organisations for which they are working．”So for the past two years he has set social scientists and technology employees to work on the criteria and algorithms（算法）that will help employees and employers find “the one”．The dating site asks sub—scribers to answer about l50 questions to help identify values and personality．So Dr．Warren envisages（设想）a questionnaire to unearth a candidate’s skills，expectation of culture and personality．
E）Few recruiters do well on matching an employee with a company culture，he says，“The majority of the workforce change jobs for reasons directly related to company culture．It is imperative we bring candidates verifiable company-culture data that matches to their core work values so they can find the best possible opportunities to experience a meaningful and emotional connection with their work．’’The details of such data remain secret．Dr．Warren knows about being faithful to one career．He worked as a relationship psychologist for 40 years before setting up eHarmony．Originally from as mall town in Iowa，he went to a school attended by only l7 pupils．He was the only child in his class．“I came both first and last。”he jokes．His father was a “true entrepreneur”who，says Dr．Warren，“owned the town”．
F）Dr：Warren’s brother-in-law took an interest in him as a teenager and encouraged his intellectual curiosity-no one else in his family had been to university．He studied at Princeton Theological Seminary before doing a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Chica90．His interest in relationships came from his Christian beliefs but also a sense that despite their 70-year marriage，his parents were incompatible．“My father was brilliant，very vital．He liked to talk about big things like the Middle East but my mother couldn’t keep up with him．They didn’t talk about much．”
G）He says the relationship still worked very well for their children：“They never said anything sarcastic to each other。”But his parents’ example instilled in him the belief that a “long marriage is not necessarily a great marriage”．So Dr．Warren set up as a marriage counselor，seeing more than 7，700 people over the decades．The counseling only confirmed his convictions that divorce was due to incompatibility that should have been evident before the wedding．“I thought people had found the wrong person．They had never received any training about who they should meet．”
H）Pre-marital counseling did not seem to work．“I never had one couple cancel their wedding as a re-suit．”He recalls one session in which the man told his fianc6e：‘‘Nothing this mall says will stop me marrying you．”It was this that set him-together with his son-in-law-on the idea of matchmaking online．Dr. Warren had also reached a point in his career when his work had become “samey”．Despite diversifying into writing relationship books and running seminars，he craved stimulation．So in 2000，just before the dotcom bubble burst，the pair managed to raise$2.5m funding．
I）It was difficult to find subscribers at the start，he says，because internet dating was relatively new．The first users tended to be those living in sparsely populated areas so there were a lot of long-distance relationships．But gradually，the California-based site grew．In 2007 he stood down from the privately owned company and moved to Maine with his wife to enjoy their 30-acre grounds．complete with golf course，swimming pool and tennis courts．Despite trying to stay active，he got bored，and，convinced that his company had lost its way，returned as chief executive．
J）During retirement he read a lot of books about comeback kings such as Starbucks’ Howard Schultz and Steve Jobs．He felt “glad to have a chance to run the company as he wanted it”．In doing so he cut his staff from 320 to 190 and says the reorganisation is aligned with his views on job-matching．“We matched people with the fight jobs in our own company．”Can the 79-year-old grandfather keep on working?“I don’t think I'll ever retire．I was bored in retirement．”He hopes，however，that the company’s chief operating officer will take over when that day eventually comes．“He’s a verb and I'm a noun." What does he mean?“I'm more of a visionary and he’s more of a doer。"