Why a job search tool might make you happier
The idea that job search tools can help you find your dream job may sound great on paper, but a study published by researchers at Cornell University suggests that their effectiveness isn’t that great.
The study found that job searches aren’t nearly as effective as you might think, and that a job-search tool might actually make you more unhappy.
“It’s possible that a search engine is more effective at getting a candidate to take a job, than the candidate is,” says lead author James A. Gidley, a professor of management at Cornell.
“For example, a company that uses Google searches may be able to narrow the search results a little bit more, or it may be more effective in finding candidates for a certain position than a company using a similar search engine.
But these types of strategies are not very effective in getting a person to do something,” he says.
Gidley says that while people are often encouraged to search for jobs by the media and employers, they might be better off taking a little more time to evaluate their options before making a decision.
“People tend to make decisions about what they want to do, but they don’t think through all of the ramifications of that,” he said.
“And the most important decision they make is how to spend the money they have on that.”
The study was part of a larger effort that found that people who used search engines to search online were more likely to be unemployed than people who searched for jobs via email.
The researchers said the results suggest that search engines could be a useful tool for finding jobs, but it may not be as effective in the long run.
“There’s a good chance that people are actually better off using job searches themselves, rather than using search tools,” says Gidleys co-author Ryan M. Smith, a research fellow at the Center for Digital Economy and a professor at the Cornell Business School.GIDLEY and his co-authors wanted to find out if there were any other research findings that support this idea.
The first part of the research involved asking people to rate their experiences with job search software and job-applicants.
The researchers looked at how satisfied the respondents were with their experience with search engines.
The results showed that the users who were satisfied with their search experience were more satisfied with the search tools themselves, and were also more likely than those who were not satisfied to be interested in finding a job.
This suggests that if you’re not satisfied with your job search, you might be less likely to take advantage of search tools.
“That suggests that people may have an incentive to take some time to make their decision, but that’s really hard to say because we don’t have a lot of information about how they actually did that,” says Smith.
Giddley says the next part of his study, which is now being completed, will look at whether using a job application tool makes people happier.
The study is available online at http://www.nature.com/articles/summaries/s0163-6308(15)60102-9.html
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