The state of online job applications blow. It’s archaic at best. In this new era of social networking, tagging, and semantic search, most job/employee finder apps can do little more that handle a few web forms, search, and collect a Word doc. Worst of all, it’s not standardized. One company’s job application mess can differ from another’s in any number of ways.
Take for example the following job search web page from a fairly high profile tech company.
Look familiar? It should if you’ve been looking for a job long enough. Just about every tech company uses a similar (or the same) template, which design and function-wise, is very 2001: lots of HTML and some rudimentary JavaScript. This particular app is run through Hire.com (which is now Authoria). Comparable options are available through Microsoft or any number of sites, such as this. As a potential job seeker, it’s a clunky, repetitive interface, which only encourages candidates to merely upload the same resume (and maybe a cover letter if they feel like it) to multiple jobs and move on.
Some may argue this is all that is necessary; let the recruiting software and HR do the rest of the work. I would argue that it loses good candidates more often than not (which I’ll get into later).
There is hope: sites like JobScore, LinkedIn, eMurse, and to an extent, Craigslist, provide a new way of bringing potential employees and employers together. But alone, they aren’t an optimal solution. New rough economic times call for new technology: this series of posts will formulate what I think a newer, better way of finding a job should look like.