Job Recommendation Engines: Low- to No-Tech and Not Getting Better

Job Recommendation from ZipRecruiter 2016-07

Let's face it.  Many recruiters are poorly trained. They choose -- or are asked to -- identify potential candidates based on slight domain knowledge, and that's putting it kindly. Meanwhile, employers have (despite press to the contrary still enjoy a buyer's market)  moved to an era of increased specialization.

To address this, or possibly to cut recruiters out of the process altogether, some recruiters have increased their use of job matching algorithms. On the job description side, available data is not canonical and metadata nonstandard -- and not getting better. On the resume side, applicants are increasingly forced into redundant cut and paste into employer-specific resume systems hosted by Taleo, Peoplesoft, Silkroad etc. There appears to be little payoff from this structuring, because the resulting standardization fails to improve matching; the resulting outlines have little do to with the jobs being matched to.

The screenshot from the ZipRecruiter recommendation engine is for a senior cybersecurity specialist. At the least, the recommendation engine should survey the applicant for suitability of the match. When data is weak and you have a a chance to ask for more, why not ask?

Commentary by @knowlengr  +Mark