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I honestly think you should aim to make jobseekers pay instead of the job offerers. The automation of job applications means that basically everyone tunes out

I honestly think you should aim to make jobseekers pay instead of the job offerers. The automation of job applications means that basically everyone tunes out when they hit 100+ CV's, go post a small wage globally remote job to test and you will see what I mean. A dollar here or there definitely means your clients will get actual people who are serious about wanting it rather than the current spray and pray system that inundates and overwhelms anyone who puts up jobs today.

clnq 3y ago
I also want to pay for this as a future jobseeker for two reasons: one, I want a platform like this to focus on me as the client, and two, I want it to exist. But what Grimburger says is also important - employers will hate your platform if it will become spam city. If a platform helped me track my applications CRM-style and automate some of the process, especially scheduling interviews, I would gladly pay LinkedIn bucks for it.
- deprecative 3y ago
  This platform will not change human behavior. Sorry to say.
  - b112 3y ago
    Yes. I think the only way to prevent spewing/spamming of every employer with resumes, would be if there was a crazy high cost to apply to each job. If someone paid $10 per month for 1 application or 100 applications, or 1000, for many the 1000 is going to happen. If it was $10 per application, you wouldn't be "changing" human behaviour, you'd be leaning into it, by de-incentivizing 1000 applications with "virtual pain". EG, money leaving wallet. I don't see how to easily prevent this with such a platform, the per-application cost is a no-go, at best you could have hard limits of apps per month.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      The problem is the person who selectively applies to a job or three doesn't need this. The target is the person who has dozens of applications in various stages of flight and is "casting a wide net" to put the strategy charitably.
      - b112 3y ago
        I suppose so. I tend to apply to a few jobs a year, but mostly because it seems like a neat place to work, or a change of pace. One thing I have noticed, as I'm extremely skilled at this stage in my career, is that there are logically fewer jobs. Spray and pray is more, I think, a junior thing.
        ghaff 3y ago
        Certainly applying for jobs out of school--at a time when nothing was online--it was very much a mass snail mail exercise for the most part as augmented by on-campus interviews. A lot of companies basically hire warm bodies. One job offer I got out of grad school was sight unseen. I had to ask them to invite me to see the place and talk to people. Everything I've gotten since then (just a few) was sending an email to someone I knew at a company.
        deprecative 3y ago
        >Spray and pray is more, I think, a junior thing. I'm at least intermediate, I've done senior work before, and this is still my strategy. Applying to one or two jobs isn't going to do anything. It takes at least a calendar year to find a job that wants me. I can't imagine applying for less than 5 positions a week, and usually it's at least triple that. I'd love to hear a different strategy for a developer that doesn't specialize in any given language or technology. Most of the employment gates seem locked for me. Yet I hear of other people doing things just like that and making bank from it. Who knows, maybe people don't like me as much as I don't like them.
        ghaff 3y ago
        Although I've never been primarily a developer, it's always been about the people I know and have worked with in some manner. My network, if you would, although that term tends to get conflated with things like "networking events." Job-seeking hasn't been about about applying to posted jobs for me since I've been working professionally for decades. Even in school I wasn't applying to multiple positions per day on average. Probably a more focused strategy is indicated than sending applications into the void.
bee_rider 3y ago
As a currently not employed person, one interesting thing to note about me is that I have no income, which means not much money to pay for things.
- Grimburger 3y ago
  I see this argument a lot, yet it falls apart upon closer inspection, I'm talking a few dollars a month to put your best foot forward at jobs that suit you rather than spray at basically every single open position and take whatever you can get. Try to see this from the other side of the equation.
  - rewmie 3y ago
    > I see this argument a lot, yet it falls apart upon closer inspection But does it, though? I don't think so. > I'm talking a few dollars a month to put your best foot forward (...) No, it really is not, and your portrayal really feels like a fraudulent way to frame the service. No job applicant becomes better suited for a position if they apply through service A or B. Moreover, the only thing that this sort of service enables is throwing your hat in the race, and it's up to the candidate to successfully pass all subsequent tears. This sort of service does absolutely nothing to help you with those stages of the process, which are the ones that matter. > Try to see this from the other side of the equation. This is one of the many mistakes you're making. For the job seeker, there is only one side: the job seeker's side. There a already N services out there that allows them to apply for a job. None of them charges them a cent. Some companies even go through the trouble of posting the same job ad in multiple services. Some companies even hire multiple recruiters to find them the job applicant they are looking for. A job applicant can already apply through N services for free. Why would a job applicant suddenly feel the need to pay for the N+1? It's stupid to confuse "have money" with willingness to pay, and mentioning vacuous statements like "sides of the equation" changes nothing.
    - Grimburger 3y ago
      > your portrayal really feels like a fraudulent way to frame This an an incredibly offensive thing to say, there's definitely a fraud here and it is not me, you should probably try harder next time with your sigint thing :) Good luck with it mate, please don't ever again.
rewmie 3y ago
> I honestly think you should aim to make jobseekers pay instead of the job offerers. If I was a job seeker, specially if I was out of a job, I would never ever spend a single cent on a job application service, particularly one that does not work as a job board. All job boards such as LinkedIn already support some job application tracker features, including through third-party services. If you have access to a text file/spreadsheet, you can easily fill in the blanks to track your own job applications. Any third party job application service ends up being only the n+1 webapp you'll be using anyway,so why pay for the one out of n+1 particularly if it doesn't add any value? There are plenty of job application tracking services out there already, but from the applicant's pov the only issue worth fixing is how you end up using a different service for each company you applied for. Job boards such as LinkedIn kind of mitigate this problem due to its massive adoption, but still some companies only use LinkedIn to route applicants to their own service. Adding yet another job application tracker to the mix solves nothing, and is definitely not worth paying for as an applicant.
- Grimburger 3y ago
  > If I was a job seeker, specially if I was out of a job, I would never ever spend a single cent on a job application service Find this very hard to believe. You really wouldn't spend $1 to submit a job application to a position that is your bread and butter while unemployed? Even if it meant there wasn't hundreds of others spamming the same endpoint? Taking such an ideological high ground over a few cents rarely works out well. I've seen/been on both ends long before covid/wfh stuff and the worldwide remote market is a complete fucking mess today due to automation, it's bots all the way down and not a single bit closer to good client/contractor relationships, you really have to wade through the weeds to find anyone half decent. Again, I ask you to post a job online and see the results for yourself then reconsider my comment.
  - rewmie 3y ago
    > Find this very hard to believe. You really wouldn't spend $1 to submit a job application to a position that is your bread and butter while unemployed? No, it's a stupid concept, and one that turns posting fake job ads into a profitable scam. > Even if it meant there wasn't hundreds of others spamming the same endpoint? Take a minute to think about that nonsense. Do you really think a company will want to risk losing the ideal candidate to fill it's position just because some mastermind decided to charge for each application? Specially when every single company out there already has no problem posting their own job ads without charging applicants. > Taking such an ideological high ground over a few cents rarely works out well. Nonsense. It's a stupid move that goes against the best interests of all parties involved. But don't take my word for it. Go ahead and invest your cash on yet another job tracking service and put a paywall on applicants. Best of luck.

clnq 3y ago

I also want to pay for this as a future jobseeker for two reasons: one, I want a platform like this to focus on me as the client, and two, I want it to exist. But what Grimburger says is also important - employers will hate your platform if it will become spam city. If a platform helped me track my applications CRM-style and automate some of the process, especially scheduling interviews, I would gladly pay LinkedIn bucks for it.

deprecative 3y ago
This platform will not change human behavior. Sorry to say.
- b112 3y ago
  Yes. I think the only way to prevent spewing/spamming of every employer with resumes, would be if there was a crazy high cost to apply to each job. If someone paid $10 per month for 1 application or 100 applications, or 1000, for many the 1000 is going to happen. If it was $10 per application, you wouldn't be "changing" human behaviour, you'd be leaning into it, by de-incentivizing 1000 applications with "virtual pain". EG, money leaving wallet. I don't see how to easily prevent this with such a platform, the per-application cost is a no-go, at best you could have hard limits of apps per month.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    The problem is the person who selectively applies to a job or three doesn't need this. The target is the person who has dozens of applications in various stages of flight and is "casting a wide net" to put the strategy charitably.
    - b112 3y ago
      I suppose so. I tend to apply to a few jobs a year, but mostly because it seems like a neat place to work, or a change of pace. One thing I have noticed, as I'm extremely skilled at this stage in my career, is that there are logically fewer jobs. Spray and pray is more, I think, a junior thing.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        Certainly applying for jobs out of school--at a time when nothing was online--it was very much a mass snail mail exercise for the most part as augmented by on-campus interviews. A lot of companies basically hire warm bodies. One job offer I got out of grad school was sight unseen. I had to ask them to invite me to see the place and talk to people. Everything I've gotten since then (just a few) was sending an email to someone I knew at a company.
      - deprecative 3y ago
        >Spray and pray is more, I think, a junior thing. I'm at least intermediate, I've done senior work before, and this is still my strategy. Applying to one or two jobs isn't going to do anything. It takes at least a calendar year to find a job that wants me. I can't imagine applying for less than 5 positions a week, and usually it's at least triple that. I'd love to hear a different strategy for a developer that doesn't specialize in any given language or technology. Most of the employment gates seem locked for me. Yet I hear of other people doing things just like that and making bank from it. Who knows, maybe people don't like me as much as I don't like them.
        ghaff 3y ago
        Although I've never been primarily a developer, it's always been about the people I know and have worked with in some manner. My network, if you would, although that term tends to get conflated with things like "networking events." Job-seeking hasn't been about about applying to posted jobs for me since I've been working professionally for decades. Even in school I wasn't applying to multiple positions per day on average. Probably a more focused strategy is indicated than sending applications into the void.

bee_rider 3y ago

As a currently not employed person, one interesting thing to note about me is that I have no income, which means not much money to pay for things.

Grimburger 3y ago
I see this argument a lot, yet it falls apart upon closer inspection, I'm talking a few dollars a month to put your best foot forward at jobs that suit you rather than spray at basically every single open position and take whatever you can get. Try to see this from the other side of the equation.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > I see this argument a lot, yet it falls apart upon closer inspection But does it, though? I don't think so. > I'm talking a few dollars a month to put your best foot forward (...) No, it really is not, and your portrayal really feels like a fraudulent way to frame the service. No job applicant becomes better suited for a position if they apply through service A or B. Moreover, the only thing that this sort of service enables is throwing your hat in the race, and it's up to the candidate to successfully pass all subsequent tears. This sort of service does absolutely nothing to help you with those stages of the process, which are the ones that matter. > Try to see this from the other side of the equation. This is one of the many mistakes you're making. For the job seeker, there is only one side: the job seeker's side. There a already N services out there that allows them to apply for a job. None of them charges them a cent. Some companies even go through the trouble of posting the same job ad in multiple services. Some companies even hire multiple recruiters to find them the job applicant they are looking for. A job applicant can already apply through N services for free. Why would a job applicant suddenly feel the need to pay for the N+1? It's stupid to confuse "have money" with willingness to pay, and mentioning vacuous statements like "sides of the equation" changes nothing.
  - Grimburger 3y ago
    > your portrayal really feels like a fraudulent way to frame This an an incredibly offensive thing to say, there's definitely a fraud here and it is not me, you should probably try harder next time with your sigint thing :) Good luck with it mate, please don't ever again.

rewmie 3y ago

> I honestly think you should aim to make jobseekers pay instead of the job offerers. If I was a job seeker, specially if I was out of a job, I would never ever spend a single cent on a job application service, particularly one that does not work as a job board. All job boards such as LinkedIn already support some job application tracker features, including through third-party services. If you have access to a text file/spreadsheet, you can easily fill in the blanks to track your own job applications. Any third party job application service ends up being only the n+1 webapp you'll be using anyway,so why pay for the one out of n+1 particularly if it doesn't add any value? There are plenty of job application tracking services out there already, but from the applicant's pov the only issue worth fixing is how you end up using a different service for each company you applied for. Job boards such as LinkedIn kind of mitigate this problem due to its massive adoption, but still some companies only use LinkedIn to route applicants to their own service. Adding yet another job application tracker to the mix solves nothing, and is definitely not worth paying for as an applicant.

Grimburger 3y ago
> If I was a job seeker, specially if I was out of a job, I would never ever spend a single cent on a job application service Find this very hard to believe. You really wouldn't spend $1 to submit a job application to a position that is your bread and butter while unemployed? Even if it meant there wasn't hundreds of others spamming the same endpoint? Taking such an ideological high ground over a few cents rarely works out well. I've seen/been on both ends long before covid/wfh stuff and the worldwide remote market is a complete fucking mess today due to automation, it's bots all the way down and not a single bit closer to good client/contractor relationships, you really have to wade through the weeds to find anyone half decent. Again, I ask you to post a job online and see the results for yourself then reconsider my comment.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > Find this very hard to believe. You really wouldn't spend $1 to submit a job application to a position that is your bread and butter while unemployed? No, it's a stupid concept, and one that turns posting fake job ads into a profitable scam. > Even if it meant there wasn't hundreds of others spamming the same endpoint? Take a minute to think about that nonsense. Do you really think a company will want to risk losing the ideal candidate to fill it's position just because some mastermind decided to charge for each application? Specially when every single company out there already has no problem posting their own job ads without charging applicants. > Taking such an ideological high ground over a few cents rarely works out well. Nonsense. It's a stupid move that goes against the best interests of all parties involved. But don't take my word for it. Go ahead and invest your cash on yet another job tracking service and put a paywall on applicants. Best of luck.