Dear Silicon Valley: Applying For Jobs Online Shouldn’t Be This Hard. Please Make It More Like Tinder.
I’m a reporter, writer and TV producer seeking a full-time journalism job in 2019. But maybe I should have gone into app development, because I have a million-dollar idea.
Here’s what I’ve learned in my brief time on the job hunt: These days, applying for jobs on the web is not all that different from online dating.
To find work often means to be Extremely Online. Influencers got rich because they understood this before the rest of us. The essence of success is no longer showing up, it’s proving yourself remotely through a screen. It’s hard to see how Will Smith’s character in “The Pursuit of Happyness” would have snagged work today without an internet connection. Phone calls are the exception, not the rule. Now, even friends would prefer if we texted them, first.
The upside to this Brave New World is that anyone is reachable. The downside is that it’s easy for them to forget about you. Employers can ghost you, and you can ghost them. You can apply to a hundred jobs, without getting a single rejection. Employers can collect and disregard applications by the thousands. Like online dating, or choosing something to watch on Netflix, a practically infinite range of possibilities distracts job seekers and employers from their present opportunities.
Call it the Tinderification of our economy. There is no turning back. But I wouldn’t want to. Although it was designed in the image of socially awkward brogrammers, the internet has made our lives incredibly convenient. While we bemoan the rise of internet dating, it allows to connect easily with people we may otherwise have never met. Uber and Lyft may not be viable long-term income streams, but drivers can make some extra cash and riders can hail a ride anywhere.
The difference, however, is that applying for jobs online is not convenient.
Currently, you have to fill a job application for every single job you want, again, and again, and again, and again. Every. Single. Time. Even “Easy Applying” on LinkedIn means clicking a button and answering a couple of extra questions for what might be a phony job listing.
So, Silicon Valley — go ahead, and do your magic! Develop a killer app for job seekers, the Tinder of jobs.
Create a simple and standardized interface with straightforward profiles. Out with customized resumes and cover letters, in with brief employee bios. Set character limits. Verify employees and employers. Allow jobs to only be posted once and ban recruitment agencies and bogus companies (You know, the ones that text you and offer five possible interview times later that day). Let job seekers swipe right if they’re interested in an opportunity and employers swipe right if they want to recruit them. If they both match, prompt a text, an email, a call, whatever.
One day when you sell this app for millions, please send a royalty check to me (you can DM me for bank details). Or, if you decide to follow in the longtime tradition of stealing ideas from people who can’t code, just offer me a full-time job-for-life at the legacy newspaper you end up buying. That’ll do.
