Back in April, Zach Bragg posted his résumé on LinkedIn hoping to get exposure and land a job in sports media. The graduating senior’s post went viral, getting over 1,280 shares, 8,000 comments, and 1.4 million views.
Despite all that buzz, Zach ended up having:
- Approximately 40 phone calls with recruiters (0.5% of total comments and 0.002% of total views)
- 15 in-person interviews from the calls
- 3 companies that he’s still speaking with and excited about
It’s great that Zach has several options, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that one of those final interviews leads to a job.
But the real story here is that after all of the attention Zach’s post received, he’s still dealing with a lengthy and draining job hunt.
In fact, Zach told me he got so many irrelevant messages that he eventually had to stop responding. He was overwhelmed by it all. And because he had no way of organizing and sorting all the comments and messages, he actually began to worry that he was missing out on relevant opportunities buried under the irrelevant volume.
Zach’s experience is all too common, and it’s the result of a broken system that favors volume over relevancy. Candidates find themselves applying to hundreds of job postings, and recruiters find themselves reviewing hundreds of irrelevant resumes. Both parties feel like they’re looking for a needle in a haystack due to the volume problem within the recruitment process.
That problem can be traced to two factors: résumés and job descriptions. Neither tool helps candidates find the jobs they want, and in the end, they cause headaches for both sides.