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> In a matching market each person wants only one of each item, each item is unique, and each item can be given to at most one person at a time. Jobs are a cla

> In a matching market each person wants only one of each item, each item is unique, and each item can be given to at most one person at a time. Jobs are a classic matching market, and just like any market, matching markets can work well, or poorly. People may be unique but the dynamics of unraveling are showing either that they are fungible or that recruiters can convince themselves quickly that they are seeing someone better. The latter psychological dynamic is more of the problem but fungibility is too. Unraveling probably happens in dating too. Dating is a matching market. Maybe the job market is Tinderizing.

nostrademons 11y ago
"Unraveling probably happens in dating too." Absolutely does, but in my observations, this has lead to the dating market bifurcating. There are some people who are seemingly always in a new relationship, two weeks after they got out of the last one, which often exploded in flames 1-2 years after it started. And then there are some people who are really picky, who go years single before finding their soulmate, who also went years single. The two groups largely don't intersect. When someone from the latter meets someone from the former, the former person tends to end up in a relationship with someone else well before the latter has made up their mind. I wonder if something similar is happening in the job market. One set of candidates can't afford to be jobless long, and so they will pick the offer in hand without waiting to see if a better one is around the corner. Another set can afford to be picky, so every job search involves multiple competing offers, and they'll hold out for the job that they really, really want even if it means passing up good immediate opportunities. Oftentimes, because they hold out for a job that both compensates them well and makes them happy, they can afford to be picky in their next job search. I wonder if Jane Street is trying to position itself in the latter camp and attract more candidates who are picky about their employer with this article.

nostrademons 11y ago

"Unraveling probably happens in dating too." Absolutely does, but in my observations, this has lead to the dating market bifurcating. There are some people who are seemingly always in a new relationship, two weeks after they got out of the last one, which often exploded in flames 1-2 years after it started. And then there are some people who are really picky, who go years single before finding their soulmate, who also went years single. The two groups largely don't intersect. When someone from the latter meets someone from the former, the former person tends to end up in a relationship with someone else well before the latter has made up their mind. I wonder if something similar is happening in the job market. One set of candidates can't afford to be jobless long, and so they will pick the offer in hand without waiting to see if a better one is around the corner. Another set can afford to be picky, so every job search involves multiple competing offers, and they'll hold out for the job that they really, really want even if it means passing up good immediate opportunities. Oftentimes, because they hold out for a job that both compensates them well and makes them happy, they can afford to be picky in their next job search. I wonder if Jane Street is trying to position itself in the latter camp and attract more candidates who are picky about their employer with this article.