Have you ever applied for a job online and felt like you were navigating a maze with no end in sight? Well, you're not alone. But what really happens when you click Apply? I've been on both sides of that click. Let's dig into it.
When I moved to the UK in 2007, my first gig was working on a ground-up rebuild of a leading job board. As well as a front end for seekers there was a back end for an army of recruitment firms to access job seekers and applications. I leaned a lot about how the industry works and about what really happens when you click Apply. I know these things because I worked on building them.
When you click Apply your CV is parsed ("read over") by software. Valuable keywords are extracted (tokenised) and your CV is analysed for the frequency and recency of those keywords. Your "value" as a human is reduced down to clusters of valued concepts.
It's akin to pulling the lever on a one-armed bandit. Candidates data is gobbled up by unknowable engineered systems and processes and then "something" happens. Even the most logical, rational and objective of us are relegated to reliance on fate and magic to deliver the desired outcome: get an interview and win that job.
But the Apply button is not just for getting found. It's also for getting discarded.
Vastly more people click Apply than there are recruiters to read their CV. The back office's real job is to get rid of as many candidates as possible. It isn't there to help the candidate. It serves the recruiter, by helping them get to the candidates most likely to get them paid.
That's a good thing, if you're the recruiter or one of those short listed. But there might be 50 great candidates, or 1000. Recruiters don't want to read 50, or 1000 CVs per role! They want a few good CVs and as few conversations as possible with candidates. Recruiters work in their own economic self interest (Tragedy of the Commons) to maximise income for effort expended.
So who loses? Obvs, great candidates who miss the cut lose out, because of the economic self interest of the recruiter. Also the employer, because they only see the candidates offered. The best candidates are never going to get interviewed in every case. It's literally impossible. The game's rigged!
Is this where AI and technologies like GPT could be about to change things?
Imagine a world where smart recruiter agents and an unlimited number of candidates talk first. AI learns about them and weighs up what they also know from the employer side. It makes recommendations based on those conversations. Even letting unsuccessful candidates know instantly and sensitively (an often lacking quality from the human recruiter set). "Chat Now" over "Apply Now".
Is it a future you'd buy into?
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