This is Part 2 in 3 part series written by Jeffrey Doucet, CareerJSM’s CEO. In October, Jeffrey was invited to Keynote at the Career Star Group annual conference in Lisbon, Portugal. This series of blog posts contain the key industry insights Jeffrey discussed as part of his talk.
Click here for Part 1 in this series.
We know that hiring resources have changed dramatically over the last decade, but let’s look at how specific changes to software on the internet has impacted job seeker behaviour.
In the last decade the job search industry moved quickly from job boards to aggregators. Aggregators are essentially a search engine, but specifically designed to pull job postings from a variety of career sites and job boards so that they can all be viewed in one location. In many ways, aggregators flattened the internet and the job search experience, pulling it all onto one site.
These aggregators also brought significant changes to the business models of hiring resources. Instead of paid postings, aggregator sites moved towards “pay per click” (PPC) systems, similar to Google’s advertising system.
What is PPC? PPC stands for pay-per-click, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically.
The PPC model places emphasis on delivering a high volume of candidates to employers. As a result, we’ve seen a fundamental change in how job seekers behave in their job search. Job seekers are heavily encouraged – some might say persuaded – to apply to as many jobs as possible. Let’s look at Indeed’s home page.
What we see is that each job has an “Easily apply” option. After uploading my resume I am encouraged to aimlessly apply to a job, without even reading the posting.
Now, let’s jump over to LinkedIn.
In similar fashion, LinkedIn is pushing job seekers to apply to jobs without browsing their fit, and compatibility.
These hiring resources – aggressively pushing growth and volume of applications – have created an experience that is tailored towards employers, not job seekers.
As a result:
- Job seekers apply to high volumes of jobs
- Jobs do not align with experience and qualifications
Job seekers are coached into false progress (high volume does not equal success) and left feeling discouraged and frustrated.
But don’t trust us: listen to what job boards are saying:
It is clear that hiring resources, as they are developed, are not working for job seekers and that job seekers are in need for a new type of solution. We will get to that later, but next, we are going to discuss the changes to the social job search and the challenges it has created for job seekers.