“Retiring classic job search”
LinkedIn’s announcement that they are “retiring classic job search” sparked all sorts of responses in me (and all sorts of reactions from users). It’s been out for a bit now, and this seems like a good moment to think about what it really means. On the one hand, LinkedIn’s existing job search setup has felt deeply unsatisfying for a long time - to the point where it sometimes seems counterproductive. But I’m also pretty skeptical of corporate improvements in general, and I don’t know if the user “search” part is really the problem. <ahem, insert eyeroll here>
A couple of things stand out to me as possibly meaningful changes - it sounds like the new AI-powered search incorporates more natural language processing (and if it works well, that could be a signficant change affecting not just the applicant experience but it could change the ways that job descriptions get written and who gets a chance to get a foot in the door). It also appears that LinkedIn is recognizing that people have already changed their search habits based on some of the challenges they’ve encountered - recognizing the desire for “verified” jobs, jobs with few applicants, and hybrid / onsite expectations. Redditors, as always, have strong opinions, including a lot of complaints about how the changes have rendered the job alerts useless. I have my own ideas about how LinkedIn could improve the search experience for job seekers - for example, providing better insights into the hiring process or whether the employer even responds to applications at all (don’t even get me started on how they should remove clearly predatory and fake posts).
Of course, these “new” AI changes aren’t limited to the job board - they’ve also been fueling endless slop posts and suggesting users make profile updates. I’m curious to see how the formal retirement of the old job board will actually play out and whether it will feel like a meaningful change for the hundreds of millions of monthly platform users. If these changes have impacted your search strategy or outcomes, I’d love to hear about it!
