This is Part 1 of a 3 part series. Part 2 here.
Written by Jeffrey Doucet, CEO.
Introduction:
A few weeks ago I was invited to Keynote the Career Star Group’s annual conference in Lisbon, Portugal. I was invited on behalf of our customer, Optimum Talent, who recently launched our software across the country (read more about that here).
The theme of my talk was about the challenges job seekers face in our rapidly changing job search ecosystem. The talk was well received, and so I have decided to break the talk up into a blog series detailing specific changes, how they have impacted job seekers, and what we think job seekers really need to manage their job search in 2017.
- The problem with job search technology
- Changing hiring resources
- Social networking
- What job seekers need
The problem with Job Search Technology
We believe that all job search technology has been optimized to serve the needs of employers, making it challenging for job seekers to manage a process that is not optimized for their needs.
Over the next couple blogs we will examine why this is the case but before we do I want to explain a couple themes we are going to focus on.
A Numbers Game
A key theme that we are going to focus on about over the next couple blogs is how job seekers are being overwhelmed with a high volume of opportunities.
Across job boards, aggregators, and social networks, professionals are being fed a high volume of jobs and opportunities. Instead of feeling empowered and optimistic, job seekers feel overwhelmed and frustrated. This is especially true when the opportunities being advertised towards job seekers are not completely aligned with their skill set. We do not think that this is the right approach to finding meaningful gainful employment.
Understanding the impact of business models
Incentives drive behaviour. Regardless of whether they will admit it, the incentives of many hiring resources, HR software technology, and professional social networks are not aligned with the needs of job seekers. Whether they are monetizing based on activity (clicks, job applications, profile views) or fees for service (paid by hiring group) we believe that monetary incentives has created an experience that is not working for job seekers.
As a result of these two factors, job seekers are being pushed towards poor job seeker behaviour when using mainstream hiring resources.
We have a different approach and we are working hard for the job seeker.
We look forward to sharing more about what these issues mean for job seekers and how you can help them.