Question
I have heard some recruiters are pulling back on job boards usage because of the number of candidates they are getting, AND fake candidates. They would rather post solely on their career page.
Note from Nick: This week’s question is actually a insightful, cautionary comment posted on Hannah Morgan’s LinkedIn page by Shelley Piedmont. It drew this response from David Hannan:
Job boards have their place, but they rely on hope more than anything. “I’ve applied to 500 jobs and got nothing” is heartbreaking to read on here every week.
These two comments raise a big question.
Nick’s Reply
Do you still use the job boards to look for a job, or to recruit if you’re an employer?
For goodness sake, Why?
(You’ll get a chance to answer in a moment.)
The distressing observations on Hannah’s LinkedIn post should make every CEO, HR manager, U.S. legislator, the FTC commissioner, economist, journalist, job seeker and employer (I know I missed lots of others) break into a cold sweat.
Job boards: Have they changed since 2012?
Here’s how I responded to Shelley and David:
“You prompted me to go back and look at a 2012 news segment I did with Paul Solman on NewsHour… Note the particular problems people cite with job boards and automated job applications.”
That was 13 years ago — about 4 eons in technology time. Everything “tech” in the world has changed!
Has anything changed about your experiences today with job boards like LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter and Indeed, to cite just a few?
Are the job boards better or worse now?
I’m serious. Hating the job boards is easy because there’s so much to hate — fake job listings, misuse of your personal information, an over-abundance of AI and robo-assessments and interviews, ghosting applicants…
(If you haven’t taken a few minutes to watch the NewsHour segment I referred to above, please consider doing so. It’s an astonishing reality check that reveals why your job search is circling down the drain. Click here.)
I’m known to be merciless critic of the job boards. 13 years after what I said on that NewsHour segment about applying for jobs online, the toilet that was the job boards has become a steaming cesspool. But I’m not out there looking for a job in a down job market in a very precarious economy.
You are.
So let’s have it: Is your experience with job boards better or worse? Details, please. Feel free to name names.
- What has improved in your experience with job boards?
- What has made the job boards worse?
- Is there a truly productive way to use the boards?
- Which ones are best?
- Which are the worst?
- Why do you believe the job boards still dominate recruiting?
- What should be done to improve your experience of job hunting and recruiting and who should do it?
If you’re a recruiter, are you “pulling back on job board usage?”
If you’re looking for a job, have you “applied to 500 jobs and got nothing?”
Is our jobs economy now a festering cesspool of job boards?
Why?
If you still use the job boards, Why?
I believe relying on job boards in any way is like buying a lottery ticket — fun if you win, but don’t play if you need to win to pay your mortgage. I suggest identifying specific managers and communicating with them directly.
Job boards: Comparing them from 2012 to today, what’s the reality?
: :
I had one instance of a job board application that worked for me in 2013, when I needed to change careers and answered an ad from a small company. Had an interview the next day, started on Monday. Since then, my employment changes came via recruiter contacts or from talking with contacts on the inside – employee referrals or chats with managers are golden, and I got that advice here, so thanks very much, Nick! Not every inside contact resulted in a job, but they *did* result in interviews and actual human interaction. All I got from job board applications were, at best, emails that arrived weeks later to let me know I didn’t get the job. Silence was the most frequent response. Job boards are a waste of time and money.
I don’t know on this, in some ways the job boards are the only way to find out if a company is hiring. It is not like we have phone books and help wanted signs on windows any more. The social media sites are a minefield themselves. I am not a white collar guy as most of the responses and career advise seem to be tailored to, some of this does transfer to all employment. That said, I use the job boards to locate companies and then I go to the company home page to find out several things.
1, is the company real
2, are they hiring (real companies have a career link)
3, are they a start up
4, employee reviews/customer reviews
5, is the wage truthful ( can’t tell you how many job postings online have a different wage number on them as opposed to what the company site has)
Even myself with 34 years of fixing the very things that transport and make the goods we all buy,I am having trouble getting hired. I hear it all the time, the economy is bad, to much AI, Trumps fault, lack of skill, tariffs……..ALL BS. the economy is good (all one has to do is watch Barrett Jackson for some evidence)
AI is an issue but not as much as people are talking about, Trump is a non starter same with tariffs, lack of skill is a bit more of a real issue.
I have been going down the rabbit hole these past 8 months, and I found that NO ONE knows anything. I have found THOUSANDS of jobs, yes some are fake, however there are still thousands that are available.Yet when you send an exploratory email, not an application, there is zero response…..that is not the AI or ATS demon it is a people problem.
I would say the HIRING process is the cesspool. Let me give y’all an example.
I applied at Bass pro for a part time gun counter sales person, the application sat in the system for 2 months, I emailed the store manager asking about my application, in less than 8 hours I was sent a declined email…..other applications are never even looked at. I meet with Hr people all the time at the job fairs and many remember me and ask if I applied. I tell them yes, last time we talked. When they look they can’t find an application…..the break down is in hiring I am convinced. I only come to this conclusion after sending emails and resumes/applications DIRECTLY to the specific HR/hiring manager I talk with at the job fair. Once I do that I get replies.
So, I don’t know if the job boards are necessarily bad, I think they have been corrupted by the very companies like Indeed who are in it only for the money. I find I have to report job listings for EEO and civil rights violations more than I apply, which means they don’t give a rats a** about what is put there.
The hiring process is the cesspool. The job boards are the bad food that leads to what goes in a cesspool. FUBAR is a good term for the job boards.
there has been, and still is I think, a proposed bill that would hold job boards and companies accountable for fake jobs and hiring times. Sounds good, dunno how it would be enforced., but it should not come to needing legislation to fix this.
Hell, I could be wrong also….would not be the first time.
Has anyone made placements working with Scout?
There’s some value in having an aggregated list of job openings. This feels like one of those things that would get re-invented if LinkedIn and its ilk were to disappear tomorrow.
Nick talks about compiling a list of ideal companies to pursue. That doesn’t matter if they’re not hiring and you have bills to pay now. It’d be nice if there were some reforms to focus on the main business of job boards. I generally understand that’s not possible as long as job hunters aren’t the paying customer.
Some vague suggestions include:
* More niche sites based on specific industries or roles
* More transparency and accountability with processing applications in a timely manner
* More transparency and accountability with filling roles
* A better reward system for good behavior like actually responding to candidates
* A stronger deterrent against fake posts
Whether these changes come internally through innovation or externally through national legislation is a separate discussion. I’m not even sure what that would look like, especially with enforcement.
A job board can be useful if one is receiving unemployment benefits and a condition therefor is sending out a specified number of résumés. By using the job as a source of work search contacts acceptable to the bureaucrats administering unemployment benefit programs, one can quickly satisfy those bureaucrats. Thereafter one can return to a more targeted job search that may be more effective, one that might not be satisfactory to the bureaucrats if not all of their boxes are checked. This can especially true when one is in a very specialized or narrow field, with fewer prospects each of which requiring more time and effort to pursue. The bureaucrats care more about quantity, continuously sending out résumés using job board listings, than on the quality of job searching.
If you want a Texas state or federal job, you need to use the job board, spend hours on their specific resume format, file electronically, and hope that you get some type of response, let alone a request for an interview.
Better include those keywords, otherwise you won’t get a human to lay eyes on the resume.
I also fond that many postings are looking for unicorns, and wanting to pay for a mule.
The system needs to be fixed.
“I also fond that many postings are looking for unicorns, and wanting to pay for a mule.’
I presume you mean “Find”.
yes, HR wants to drive down the salary structure. They don’t care if the candidate is qualified or not, that isn’t their problem, it’s the hiring managers. And most managers nowadays are too scared of HR to resist. They know if they cross HR, their name will be on the next RIF list.