LinkedIn Wants You To Apply For Fewer Jobs

LinkedIn has unveiled an AI-powered "Job Match" feature to discourage users from applying to positions they aren't qualified for, aiming to address recruitment inefficiencies in a tight job market. The tool, the Microsoft-owned firm said, analyzes users' experience against job requirements to provide detailed qualification summaries, going beyond basic keyword matching. Premium subscribers will receive more granular match data.

How about a better use

[ukoda]

How about they use an AI to filter the news feed and emails they send me to stuff I am actually interested in?

Re: How about a better use

[ArmoredDragon]

Fuck interests, why don't they just stop being a fucking sales platform pretending to be a job hunting/professional networking site?

I just found out an hour ago that they're either selling or otherwise giving out my 2fa phone number to salespeople even though my account is configured to totally opt out of EVERYTHING. Got a cold call from a sales guy who was literally talking about stuff I put only on LinkedIn more or less as a honeypot, and his hands were dripping in it. I did that to the few sites that still have my number for 2fa after getting a few odd vendor sales calls.

I basically got them red handed on this one. Fuck them.

Re: How about a better use

[DaFallus]

That must be why people keep calling my personal cell phone and trying to use me to sell shit to my current employer.

Re: How about a better use

[ArmoredDragon]

I'd be pretty certain of it at this point. This may be something to look at, but I suspect that turning it off isn't sufficient:

https://www.reddit.com/r/priva... [reddit.com]

If you actually google about using LinkedIn to get sales leads, it doesn't take more than a few seconds to realize that this is probably how the site really makes its money. They've literally built a whole other side of the site specifically tailored to salesmen.

I think they all know you don't want to be contacted through that site but they do it an

Re: How about a better use

[Drethon]

Yeah, this is why I use 2fa apps and my phone number only goes to banks and employers (and I don't fully trust them). If someone hacks my LinkedIn account, they will just see all public info, which seems less a problem than giving LinkedIn (or companies like yahoo) my phone number.

Re:

[Quietti]

I recently attended a workshop on LinkedIn marketing tools. One interesting point:

While the site has long been a professional networking and recruitment platform, the pandemic gave LinkedIn management time to pause and ponder the bigger picture. Their conclusion: At the bird's eye view, LinkedIn constitutes a pool of white collar people, many of which are high earners. It therefore goes that the next step is to advertise high ticket events and products that match the estimated income level suggested by one'

Re:

[easyTree]

newsFeed.filter (_ => false)

Re:

[mjwx]

How about they use an AI to filter the news feed and emails they send me to stuff I am actually interested in?

This. I'd rather apply for fewer jobs, this means finding those jobs with are suitable for and attractive to me.

LinkedIn's approach is using a shotgun to perform keyhole surgery. They send you anything that their advertisers pay for that may somehow have something to do with a random thing that was put in your linked in profile years ago.

The thing that really annoys me about LinkedIn (and the UK in general) is that it's hard to find the salary on offer, if it is even included in the advertisement. Fir

Re: How about a better use

[ArmoredDragon]

I think LinkedIn is simultaneously telling people to avoid the shotgun approach to applying for jobs. I know some people who will toss in applications to all kinds of companies and see what sticks. I personally can't do that -- while that does risk taking longer to find a job, I think it makes it easier to keep my mind and my resume focused on just a few jobs at once, where being unfocused might make it harder to get the higher paying jobs. I've never been actively seeking a job for more than about a month

Yeah, no

[Austerity Empowers]

Create a bunch of fake job listings you never intend to fill, of cousre people are just going to apply for everything. You can't simultaneously claim labor shortage, create a system to bin labor willing to fill openings, and not expect labor to take it in the rear.

Re:

[GoTeam]

Plus, many companies have their HR departments enter the job "requirements" on job sites. It filters candidates out immediately if they don't match specified skills exactly. I had this problem with my HR department (until I politely suggested I take that part over for the jobs I need filled). They were filtering out good candidates and finding almost no one that matched the requirements they set. I told them which items I wanted required, but they figured every skill should be required...

I'm done bitching

Re:

[bn-7bc]

Hold on so you're saying that HR is not intreested in geting the right people for the job with skilles listed by someone with knowledge of the situsa skills needed? Is it only me ot does that sound like HR needs to re staff with people that are actually good at their job?

Re:

[jonbryce]

I have a similar difficulty.
For the positions I recruit for, I know there's only about 8-20 people (depending on specific position) in the world who actually have all the required exact experience, and I know who most of those people are, and for the rest, I know someone who knows them.
What I'm looking for is someone who has experience in another area that demonstrates to me that they would be capable of learning the skills they need to do the job.
Or if it is one of those 8-20 people, then the interview pro

Re: Yeah, no

[ArmoredDragon]

There's probably more than meets the eye on that. I've been in two jobs where my original job listing is still up even after I've been hired, and the reason why is exactly as stated: Underemployment in my field.

Most who apply won't get a response though. We'll get something like 10,000 applications a day (don't know the exact number, but it's fucking high) and somewhere in the single digits pique our interest enough that more than 10 seconds is spent reviewing it. Fewer get a screening call, even fewer get

Jury, judge, executioner.

[devslash0]

Eventually, someone will find a perfect layout and wording to get jobs and everyone will start replicating the same pattern. In fact, people will probably use AI to write AI-friendly resumes. So we'll have unqualified people creating an illusion of competency using the same tools that will later evaluate them. One big illusion.

Re:

[GoTeam]

Exactly. The employers will be right back in the same position they were before. They'll have a ton of applicants pass the first phase of the interview process and will need to do a ton of phone interviews, or whatever comes next in their process (skill test...).

Data Collection

[Rhyas]

Seems like in order to make this work, it's likely going to encourage users to input more specific data about themselves to more accurately map requirements. E.g. "Devops" won't really be sufficient when the job requirement lists specifics like Python, CI/CD, etc.

Bad AI

[TomClancy_Jack]

Hopefully this is better than the "premium" AI they were offering now. Up until now, it couldn't actually do AI shit. I wanted it to look for jobs in my field, but cross reference places my 1st level contacts currently work or worked in the past. And it literally couldn't handle looking at people's work history that is stored in LinkedIn. So I had to manually waste hours making a spreadsheet of my contact's work history and set up manual alerts.

and will the job requirements be better? reject pe

[Joe_Dragon]

and will the job requirements be better? reject people with masters when the job needs an BS/BA or higher?

The Purpose of LinkedIn

[TheStatsMan]

Turn skilled labor into a commodity that can be bid down to the lowest price.

Re:

[Tony Isaac]

Whatever. Over the last 15 years, I've gotten three excellent jobs through LinkedIn, and the pay in each case was very competitive. If your skills are so commoditized that they can be "bid down" so easily, maybe it's time to retrian.

Re:

[TheStatsMan]

It's typical of morons to take their personal experience and think it's generalizable to the population at large. Is it not obvious to you that your anecdote and my hypothesis can exist in the same world with no disagreement whatsoever?

 

Re:

[Tony Isaac]

Moron here.

My anecdote is by no means unique. But even if it is, it's more than the evidence you included with your "hypothesis."

What does LinkedIn stand to gain by "turn skilled labor into a commodity that can be bid down to the lowest price"?
How does LinkedIn even influence the price of labor?
How does AI promote lowering the price of labor?

If LinkedIn stands to gain anything, it's by increasing the frequency of job-hopping. They get paid for job posts. It doesn't matter to them how much the person who lan

Re:

[TheStatsMan]

>How does AI promote lowering the price of labor?

I'll start here, because I didn't bring this up at all - but for certain jobs this will be true and for other jobs it won't be.

>How does LinkedIn even influence the price of labor?

By increasing the number of applicants to any given job.

>What does LinkedIn stand to gain by "turn skilled labor into a commodity that can be bid down to the lowest price"

First, any company wants to pay as little as possible for labor. Second, LinkedIn is owned by Microsof

Re:

[Tony Isaac]

So, you suggest that this AI tool (which is what the article is about) will increase the number of applicants per job. That is the opposite of what the article suggests, that the tool will _decrease_ the number of applicants per job. The very title of the article points this out.

Where is the bidding taking place, exactly? LinkedIn is a major jobs site, but by no means the biggest. Indeed and ZipRecruiter are significantly bigger, and other sites like GlassDoor, Google Jobs, Monster, and CareerBuilder still

Excellent news!

[Fons_de_spons]

Now job requirements will need to be more realistic or there will be no matches!

Re:

[davecb]

Alas, HR departments will wonder why they're getting fewer and fewer applications. Only if hiring manager need to sign off on ads for their positions will one have a good chance of getting a valid skills list and job description.

My company used to own a headhunter. We had to have a co-op student train them on AND and OR before we dared use them for our own job postings. Their training doesn't prepare them for hiring people with skills.

Re:

[sinij]

job requirements will need to be more realistic

First time?

Re: Excellent news!

[Fons_de_spons]

No... sarcastic ;-)

Re:Excellent news!

[Local ID10T]

Now job requirements will need to be more realistic or there will be no matches!

Oh no! No Americans matched the job requirements. I guess we will have to bring in more H1Bs!

(...working as intended.)

Re:

[Tony Isaac]

Agreed!

Pay more, get screwed?

[SoonerPet]

So the point of this is to have you apply to fewer jobs by showing you don't match them well enough, though it is only applies to paid subscribers? All the free people will just apply to all the jobs like normal. This seems backwards, now those actually paying will be getting less job opportunities? Sounds about right. lol

"Are you serious, Pepper Jack?"

[Pseudonymous Powers]

If I were in charge of training this AI, it would modify any job postings that require you to be proficient in Amazon Web Services, Azure, AND Google Cloud Platform so that you only have to be proficient in Amazon Web Services, Azure, OR Google Cloud Platform.

Re:

[toxonix]

I'm proficient in all the clouds!
they're all the same right? I mean a cloud's a cloud.. /s

It's trash

[sizzlinkitty]

So many Linkedin Jobs aren't available to apply directly anyways, instead they filter you off to myworkday, adp, bamboo or some other HCM application that requires you to create a new account and then requires a manual recreation of your resume before you can even apply. Then they want you to manually log back in to track your application? Seriously this whole process is beyond screwed.

Re:

[Pseudonymous Powers]

Yes, if only there were some popular site that could present your work and education history in a consistent format to all interested parties.

Why would anybody use it?

[Virtucon]

LinkedIn is a shithole. It's full of resume padders and it's a laughing stock. I realize that there are a lot of people and organizations who think it's a sacred source of people and careers and opportunities, but again: shithole.

Re:Why would anybody use it?

[Fons_de_spons]

I agree here. But I am happy to announce that linked-in is a lot of fun. Most of the people I was in college with are in my contact list. I know who they are, I know what their grades were, I may even have worked with them. Then you read about all the marvelous accomplishments they achieved on linked in, in the typical overly enthusiastic bright style. The world is at their feet.
Then you meet them in a bar and you learn the real life, sober story behind it. All the world's a stage... Definitely on linked in. Maybe inflating should be a default endorsed skill.

Re:

[Sique]

That's the only way I use it, but being out of any school long before the invention of the World Wide Web, my contacts are mainly people I knew from the early days, when people hang out on IRC and in MUSHs and MUDs. From time to time, some headhunter contacts me, and being a former field service engineer, I usually know what company he is trying to hire for, as I was probably servicing some device in the shop. And then there is the occasional sales person trying to get on my contact list. So I am doing what

Re:Why would anybody use it?

[Tony Isaac]

Meh. According to research, LinkedIn profiles tend to be more honest than general resumes. https://socialbarrel.com/linke... [socialbarrel.com]

In the past 15 years, I've gotten three jobs through LinkedIn. Each was an excellent match.

I want better filtering the other direction

[swillden]

I'd love it if LinkedIn would enable recruiters to realize that their position doesn't fit me before they contact me. I have two fundamental requirements that I will not budge on (location and minimum spendable compensation (pre-IPO stock doesn't count)) and no matter how I've tried to configure the system to let recruiters know that they shouldn't bother contacting me unless their role fits those requirements, they still insist on contacting me. I politely reiterate my requirements and nine times out of ten they then disappear, having wasted both our time. So far the other one in ten ends when we get down to discussing the details of teams, projects, etc., because I'm picky and not particularly motivated to move, but I don't think those conversations are a waste of time even if they don't ultimately result in a job.

But the ones that don't meet my clearly-stated and very simple requirements piss me off. Don't tell me you'll relocate me when I've stated that I do not want to relocate, and do not ever offer me a big pay cut and think that you're doing anything other than wasting time.

Re:

[radarskiy]

"I have two fundamental requirements"

Those requirements are way to detailed.

My fundamental requirement is that I'm an integrated circuit designer, not a database administrator. Even that is too hard for recruiters.

Re:

[swillden]

Ouch. I at least don't seem to get a lot of left-field requests like that, not any more at least.

Never Going to Happen.

[Petersko]

I was a hiring manager for some years, and I routinely received resumes where people just plain fucking lied. And in grandiose terms - not little stuff. I'd get a long list of industry acronyms and technical proficiencies that would imply 20 years of experience, but they graduated two years ago. In some cases I knew with certainty that the only thing they could really claim about these technologies is that they could (mostly) spell their names/acronyms. Some folks think sitting next to somebody who did SQL

Re:

[quall]

You should know that many candidates are coached into lying with the hopes of being hired and then figuring it out before they're caught. Otherwise they never find a job. Nobody respects their employer anymore because everyone is replaceable.

And to be fair, a lot of jobs on linked-in have unrealistic requirements too. Like a senior position asking for 10 years of experience for a technology that may have only been around for 7. Frankly, if a tech position is offering entry-to-junior level compensation, then

Re:

[sabt-pestnu]

Most of the positions I see through LinkedIn, LinkedIn is gracious enough to tell me, "100+ people clicked apply".

Recently, for those JD I see because of LinkedIn, I include a cover letter saying, "While I have a long resume, I do not have ("nice to haves" 1 through 22). If you have resumes advertising those, your time is better spent with them."

I figure that, padders aside, if they've got 100 resumes coming in, they've probably got someone more closely matching their requirements than me.

And who know? Pe

Re:

[jonbryce]

It depends though. The job I'm working in at the moment had hundreds of people applying for it.
I knew there were only two people in the world who met the exact requirements, one was me, and the other was my ex boss who wasn't looking for a new position.

Re:

[jonbryce]

I had someone who had 20 years of experience in something that was invented 15 years ago, and would not be used in the company they claimed they worked at.

ai will fix it

[toxonix]

I really hope I don't have to stoop to using LInkedIn when the company decides that it IS in fact cheaper to offshore your entire development organization again. I LinkedOut so long ago I can't remember when. I keep telling people I'm not into SM.

off topic but

[Big Hairy Gorilla]

ublock origin told me over 1000 trackers were following me on the web page last time I logged in. I do nothing there, first time in several years. The running total kept going up as I sat on the page. Then I ran screaming from the room.

I want LinkedIn to be liable

[drinkypoo]

I want LinkedIn to be liable for fake job postings.

I want few fake jobs

[OrangeTide]

Maybe they should also crack down on companies listing fake jobs [forbes.com] that they never fill. It's clear they're playing investment and stock games by posting so many openings.

LinkenIn is free to ride themselves out of business. I'm just saying what it will take for me to keep going back to the site.

So if the AI is writing the resume summary

[doubledown00]

and everyone is using the same AI for applying for the same pool of jobs, are the recruiters not about to get 10,000 slight variants of the same document?

Errrmm ... What about the open positions?

[Qbertino]

How about setting and enforcing stricter standards for job listings? Not that I really care, because LinkedIn is an utter piece of shit of a totally unusable career platform anyway, but if they want to improve quality they should start where it's notably the worst, no?

Shitty job listings and bad to flat out fraudulent actors on the offerings side are arguably the biggest problem of these career platforms.

Its job search already is shitty enough as it is

[Quietti]

Considering how ridiculous its job search results already are, I fail to see how this will improve anything.

The money would have been better spent on redesigning the job search's user interface to be able to edit the filters for all job alerts in one page. Currently, one cannot edit the filters at all. Instead they must create a new alert with the correct filters and delete the old alert. I've randomly contacted their developers and even mentioned this to a LinkedIn Senior VP who visited a local event. They

Transferable skills

[TJHook3r]

I see, so companies expect to publish a post with a list of buzzwords and the only candidates will be those possessing all those buzzwords, with no concept of training, development or transferable skills? So only those people that are actually doing an identical job can apply? Let's see how that goes.