The sites that know your dream job before you do
12 December 2014 by Rachel Nuwer
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We use algorithms to connect to people and things we’ll love, like suggestions on Netflix – soon they might connect us to jobs we'll love too
MAYBE you read Gone Girl because Amazon recommended it; watched Breaking Bad because Netflix suggested you'd like it; even met the love of your life because OKCupid said you'd get along. But you probably had to rely on traditional methods when it came to landing your job.
Several start-ups are aiming to change that. They want to replace career fairs and classifieds with online systems. While LinkedIn is still the behemoth of such networking, these start-ups are unique in tailoring services to specific cohorts, ranging from students to hourly wage earners.
Collegefeed, launched in 2013, was built with recent graduates in mind. Profiles emphasise personality and motivation over real-world experience – which most students lack. The site's algorithms then provide jobseekers and employers with suggestions for potential matches.
"Many students and professionals are already actively engaged in creating and maintaining online profiles, and these start-ups build on that," says Melissa Venable at the US National Career Development Association near Charleston, South Carolina. "As the systems become more sophisticated, they could evolve into the future career fair."
Sanjeev Agrawa, Collegefeed's founder and CEO, agrees. Online systems, he says, mean employers aren't limited to career fairs at a handful of top colleges: they can connect with students everywhere. Some 40,000 students and 800 employers in the US and Canada have signed up to Collegefeed, and Agrawa says that around 50 per cent of students make contact with employers. "The [US] national average for getting connected with a job you apply for is 5 to 8 per cent," he says.
Another service, ZippyApp, is aimed at jobs that pay by the hour– in restaurants or retail, for instance. Turnover is high in this sector, so hiring can eat up time. ZippyApp sorts applicants based on experience, availability, skill set and more, and then ranks matches for a given opening. Once a connection is made, success rates are as high as 80 per cent, says Kamyar Faron, ZippyApp's founder.
Faron is extending the idea to mid-career professionals with a site called Talentral. "A LinkedIn profile helps for being found, but not for sending different sales pitches to different people," says Faron. His service allows people to make unlimited profiles, each tailored to different companies. Algorithms add tags that help these appear in relevant searches.
How effective are such algorithms? Netflix has spent big to make sure its suggestions come from a range of genres – will the employment equivalent be as sophisticated? Or will it echo offline recruitment, only connecting employers with candidates from leading colleges, and employees with high-profile companies?
Faron says ZippyApp's algorithm is dynamic, so it improves with every new user and connection. "It learns as more data becomes available."
These services are not yet perfect. Just as people who share a favourite colour aren't guaranteed to fall in love, neither is someone with the right skill set necessarily a good fit for a certain company. But as the technology improves, finding an ideal job may one day be as easy as picking a TV show.
This article appeared in print under the headline "Network – minus the work