@SEEKER: Service Providers Fallacy
Professional networking sites1 are essential for building business relationships. They offer premium tiered services and AI-enhanced analytics on companies and profile visits. However, specific challenges arise when applying these features to the context of job search. The base rate of active job searching for an individual is lower than for users generating bulk sales and high-monetary-return business contacts. This indicates that frequentist approaches are unsuitable; individuals tend to look for jobs far less frequently than the rapid changes in the job market.
This base rate improves when a job search is a mainstay practice. The Employment journey concept helps centre-frame job searching. Maintaining this perspective helps support their sense of agency self-manifested in proactive professional development planning (PDP). They actively identify skill gaps, seek training, and strategically build a network. By definition, this reframing promotes self-efficacy. The belief in their ability to identify opportunities helps cultivate a mindset that positions them as competent candidates.
The chances of quickly finding a job within days or weeks are generally low due to market competition and hiring timelines. Engaging marketing like Figure 1 or an anecdotal “My associate used Premium and got hired!” stands in stark contrast to the indicative low base rates leading to a cognitive error known as the base rate fallacy, a cognitive error as the probability space is masked by generalisation.
Alternatively, consider the job-seeker with a long-term goal of being self-employed or inviting engineering contract work. At the cost of an annual subscription that amounts to a few days of earnings is a fair risk, as a subscription improves the chances of self-employment. Had they cancelled the subscription earlier, such opportunities would have been excluded.
In today’s job market, seekers face an increasingly complex landscape that, while enhanced by AI, lacks a unified approach. Meanwhile, we find that high levels of networking or job search self-efficacy compensate for low levels of any other resource and improve job search intensity, leading to interviews. 3
To compound this lack of directional support in services targeted at job-seekers, today’s candidates contend with a significantly convoluted paradigm that introduces considerable noise into their efforts to secure gainful employment: An imperative to craft targeted resumes capable of bypassing electronic vetting (by ATS - application tracking systems) is complicated by the prevalence of ghost job postings by legitimate companies4 and the documented risk of data harvesting for training AI or scams and phishing.5 6 Further obscuring the path are organisational practices such as filling roles internally while still posting listings.
These inch away from the base rate of success, rather than accumulate as a cohesive whole, and although generally the more resources the better, it is nuanced(Veiga et al., 2024). An underlying opportunity cost issue emerges when maximising returns for efforts. Aligning with Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, the financial outlays are more stressful than any equivalent gain from building agency and self-efficacy. Journey mapping focuses on the R in COR - “objects, personal characteristics, conditions, and energies that are valued by the individual” 7 for goal accomplishment. 8
Journey mapping has compounded value for the @SEEKER given the necessity for continuous skilling and reskilling in a highly competitive market (UK averaging x2 seekers per advertised role)9 (reflected by Figure 2), compared to reliance on external, fragmented AI-based solutions, where poor data governance blurs the lines between customer (C) and owner (O), where customer is a data abstraction, and the customer (C) and the AI domain (D).
CIPD figures show an expected decrease in staffing within the UK private sector, with 25% planning redundancies, “the highest level in a decade outside the pandemic.”, and 12% reduced hiring. 40% expect a rise in existing staffing costs.
In a saturated market, where job-seekers outstrip demand,10 while it is suboptimal to take any job, @SEEKER can look for well-designed roles that break the cycle of waiting for well-matched roles. 11 Note: this study blends research and design assumptions to develop the @SEEKER persona, making no assumptions about the specific circumstances of the seeker.
Footnotes
E.g.
LinkedIn↩︎(What is LinkedIn?, 2023)↩︎
(Veiga et al., 2024)↩︎
(Thapa, 2024)↩︎
(Rodriguez, 2024; Bish et al., 2024)↩︎
(Bish et al., 2024)↩︎
(Hobfoll, 1989, p. 516 cited by Veiga et al., 2024)↩︎
(Halbesleben et al., 2014 cited by Veiga et al., 2024)↩︎
Source: Adzuna UK Job Market Report (2024) cited by McCulloch, A., 2024)↩︎
Source: Adzuna UK Job Market Report (2024) cited by McCulloch, A., 2024)↩︎
(Earl at al., 2019)↩︎