In a struggling job market where the scant job opportunities that do get posted use dubious AI tools to screen applicants, networking has become perhaps the only viable path to a job.
Some desperate job-seekers who weren’t gifted with a built-in network of key industry acquaintances are now taking to dating apps to help find jobs. According to a recent survey by ResumeBuilder.com, one in three users has used a dating app to find a job, with nearly one in ten saying it was their primary purpose for being on the apps. Sixty-six percent of respondents to the survey said that they looked for users who worked at the companies they wanted to be part of, and 75% said that they intentionally matched with people working in specific roles they hoped to fill.
“Networking is the only way people are rising above the horror show that the job search is today,” ResumeBuilder.com’s chief career advisor, Stacie Haller, told Bloomberg on Monday.
Among those using the apps to find a job, 88% said they had successfully connected with someone for professional reasons. For most, that meant gaining mentorship or career advice, landing an interview, receiving a job lead, or obtaining a referral. Thirty-seven percent said they even received a job offer from it.
Some had the best of both worlds, with 38% of respondents saying that they ended up having a physical relationship with the person they connected with to find a job.
Though networking has been the key buzzword in career development for some time now, increased reliance on AI to automate the initial steps of application review has made the practice all the more important. AI systems can save companies a lot of time by scanning applicants’ resumes and cover letters in a matter of seconds, but the process is often plagued by inherent biases baked into the algorithm.
At the end of the day, AI is not the best tool for selecting the most qualified candidates but companies continue to rely on the technology because they have not yet found a cheaper way to deal with the overwhelmingly high amount of applications they receive for a single posting, stemming from the soaring unemployment rate and increased convenience in sending out job applications thanks to platforms like LinkedIn, and once again, AI.
So, no matter how well qualified you can be for a job, there is a very real possibility that a computer algorithm will just straight out reject you in the first or second stages of the job hunt, before your application even gets viewed by human eyes. This is where networking comes in, as referrals increasingly become the only surefire way to have your resume be evaluated by an actual human being.
But networking is easier said than done. A job market increasingly reliant on networking is one that is bound to have more inequality, as job-seekers from privileged backgrounds get an undeniable upper hand in the networking process, thanks to an already existing network.
That partially AI-driven rise in inequality is a trend we are already starting to see play out, according to Cornell professor John McCarthy, which could be why job seekers are becoming increasingly desperate to help bridge this gap. According to the survey, 42% of respondents said they were networking on dating apps due to a difficult job market, 29% said it was because they were desperate to find work or advance in their careers, and 22% said that they just lacked networking opportunities elsewhere.
Although the survey says that Tinder and Bumble, two apps that don’t promote professional usage, were used the most for this purpose, there are several dating apps that take the initiative to provide this experience.
Most notably, there is Raya, an exclusive, referral-only, and membership-based dating app that calls itself a private “community for people all over the world to connect and collaborate.” Although it’s known mostly as a dating app, users can connect with others by searching for specific industries, roles, or companies.
The LGBTQ dating app Grindr also embraces similar usage. Grindr’s chief product officer AJ Balance told Bloomberg that about a quarter of its 15 million monthly average users were using the app for networking.
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