Why jobs should apply to people.
Why jobs should apply to people.
We’ve been brainwashed. Notes on a paradigm shift.
The Big Myth
People apply to jobs.
Right?
Okay, sure… at the C-level, or for a particularly esoteric or hard-to-fill role, it makes sense that jobs might apply to people (via headhunters, recruiters, etc.).
But for the ‘average’ person—even the average software engineer (maybe not at a FAANG company but anything beyond that)—it makes sense that people should apply to jobs.
Right?
Uh Oh
Let’s break this down.
The job knows when it’s coming ‘online’ and starting to look for someone. The person doesn’t.
The job knows pretty well—even if it’s rarely articulated clearly—what it’s looking for. The person… generally less so.
So, the moment the job is ‘ready’ to start inviting people to interview for it, it should be able to ‘press a button’ and ‘see’ all the people who are a good fit, in rank order, and then ‘apply’ to some of those people, telling them why it thinks it would be a good fit for them based on their profiles.
What does this require?
The job to be able to clearly articulate what it’s looking for in a structured way. Current job descriptions hilariously suck at this. “Must have a minimum of 4 years experience with [language that was invented 3 years ago].” <—also that language can be picked up on the job in 2 weeks by anyone who knows similar languages, so it’s a crazy thing to filter on
A single ‘place’ where the job can ‘go’ and ‘click a button’ to ‘find’ people who are good fits to apply to.
The people to be able to clearly articulate what they’re good at and what they’re looking for in a structured way. (So the job can properly ‘find’ them to apply to them.)
Obviously, once this matchmaking paradigm is set up, it can work in both ways, but there is absolutely no logical reason why the ‘person’ should typically apply to the job, and not the other way around.
Common Objections
This only makes sense for ‘top’ people. It’s not helpful for little old me.
Why? If that was the case—if you weren’t even a close fit for any of these jobs—how would you applying to any of the jobs help?
It seems like, for most people, the problem is that (no offense) you suck at explaining what you (can) do, aren’t clear on what you want from your job/career, are afraid of coming across as too ‘self-promotey’, just generally assume that you ‘should’ apply to jobs (even though this almost never works and your submission just goes into a black hole), and/or you don’t have enough career/work/volunteer/interesting experience yet to clearly see how you can ‘add value’ to a ‘company’.
If there is a great job for you ‘out there’ (axiom), and that job is in the ‘place’ and described clearly in a structured way, and your ‘profile’ is also in the same ‘place’ and described (structured) clearly, you should and will appear as a top match for that job, who will then apply to you.
This makes sense for everyone—even people early in their career.
But structured data isn’t always fair! Work experience isn’t a good indicator of skill. We need assessments, unbiased ways to show how good we are!
Sure. This is why we always recommend that companies (and people) insist on a “pilot project”—a paid ‘sample project’ over a few hours to a few days that literally shows how good the person would be at the job. This project is great for both the person and the company, who both get a realistic ‘work preview’ of each other to see if they’re a good fit.
Obviously, not everything can easily be structured and quantified and stuffed into a company or person’s ‘profile’—but properly structuring a profile (what you’re good at + what you want) will go a long way towards getting the right jobs to apply to you—and then the company will need to have a sane, fair hiring process in order to properly ‘reveal’ your skills.
That being said, it’s also on you to understand and highlight your skills before the interview (in your profile) and in the interviews. You can’t just assume that the interviewer will ask you great questions or give you a chance to ‘prove yourself’—they probably won’t. They probably have no idea what they’re doing. Help them by doing as much of the work upfront for them as you can—so that when they’re interviewing you they’re focusing on your skills, your strengths, your experiences—and not just comparing you to the job description.
Structured data will lead to more bias.
This is how hiring works now:
For most jobs: A job is posted on some ‘job board’. People apply (the ones who were lucky enough to spot the job posting early on—if you’re late to apply after the first 72 hours(!), you probably won’t even be looked at). Hiring managers spend 7 seconds looking at your resume (if they look at it at all). They choose some people to interview. Some of those people advance to the ‘next round’. Etc. Etc. The hiring manager either a) hires one of these people or b) doesn’t hire anyone because they’re so unimpressed with the ‘applicant pool.’ Do you have any idea how often this happens? Do you know how many jobs sit there ‘on the table’ because they can’t ‘find’ the ‘right’ person?
There’s nothing more biased than people who need jobs not having jobs while jobs sit empty.
Leveling the Playing Field
This is how hiring can work:
A job goes live. It immediately ‘finds’ all the people who are a good fit. It applies to them. Some of them accept the interview offer. Etc. Etc. It keeps doing this until it hires someone.
More jobs are filled. No jobs are left ‘on the table’ for lack of ‘good people.’
This leads to better people<>job matches (= more happiness on both sides), more people getting jobs (via fewer jobs left ‘on the table’ = fewer unemployed people), and more ‘economic growth’ via GDP, etc.
Point is, the most biased system in the world is the one we have now.
Selection bias at the start of the process (when only ‘job applicants’ are ‘seen’ by the hiring manager) means that people who are, you know, busy raising kids, etc. and don’t have time to be applying to jobs all day literally don’t get seen.
Making jobs apply to you—turning an active process into a passive process for you—means you can take your kids to school while you are automatically being considered for jobs in the background.
How’s that for a nice feeling?