There are so many people out of work right now, it’s hard to even make it tangible to those that are secure in their job. It’s ridonkulous.
I know a very large number of extremely smart, extremely qualified and yet extremely frustrated individuals. Why are they frustrated?
Well, aside from the obvious lack of jobs, there is another very deeply disturbing problem.
Insult to Injury
Being “out of work” sucks. I’ve been there. It’s very disheartening. The job hunting process is exhausting and it takes everything you’ve got to keep moving forward.
One of the ways I tried to alleviate the problem for my jobless friends was to create the RSS job search dashboard. This process simplified the searching part of the equation, but it did nothing to fix the real problem: the application process.
I’ve been trolling the job boards for 2 years now contacting companies that are looking for social media strategists, and community managers, and recommending that they outsource to us instead. During all this activity, I’ve had a chance to see how bad the application process really is.
If you were to seek out a job right now you would find hundreds of disparate systems for submitting a resume, cover letter and additional documents. You’ll find systems that accept PDF, some that don’t. You’ll find some that make you register, and some that don’t.
It could legitimately take 15 minutes to submit one single application.
Is this the best we’ve got?
So here’s what I propose someone build. Create one single platform that can be used to apply for jobs. It needs to be something like the Facebook Connect button but for job applications. No more than 4 clicks from start to finish. No additional fields to fill in, no filling in information that is already on a resume, none of it; just an “apply button” and a “submit button.”
The system should allow you to setup a profile, upload a few versions of a resume, add some additional resources, maybe even a video that let’s the candidate talk about themselves and their aspirations.
If we’re going to do anything about this unemployment situation, we have to do something about how horrible the process is. There are too many job boards, too many application systems and too much frustration. It must be damn near impossible to keep track of all of the places you’ve applied to.
Can someone out there looking for something to build, please build this?
If you are unemployed, or if you just agree with this idea, please just give this a +1, a Like or a Tweet. You never know who we could reach by sharing this socially, and maybe, just maybe someone will build a way out of the frustration.