Can you imagine a world where workers are given access to detailed analytics about the labor market, where they can make informed decisions about how to best put their talents to use, and where they can take steps that lead to upward mobility and growth rather than being stuck on a treadmill of lateral movements? This is a world where employees and job seekers have greater control over their career trajectories. This is a world of career empowerment.
Career empowerment is not achieved overnight. It is a gradual, if not inevitable, evolution. We are perhaps only in the beginning stages of this evolution, but it is exciting to witness. Even if you are pivoting your life and changing careers, it’s important to keep in mind the prospects for future career empowerment.
The Difficulties of Searching for a Job
Searching for a job is time-consuming. And most of the steps we take – most of the job offers we respond to – lead to dead ends. This makes the whole process all the more frustrating. You need to put in the time, but you also know that most of the time you put in will not lead to significant results.
The recruiter is likely to try and oversell their job opening. And the job seeker is likely to do the same. This makes assessing the real value of a position or a candidate difficult and can potentially lead to disappointment or poor fits.
Both the recruiter and the job seeker are overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities they are asked to evaluate, filter out, or pursue. And all of this is meant to be carried out within a highly competitive environment. It’s no wonder searching for a job is such a stressful endeavor.
The job seeker also needs to decide if they are looking simply for a job (a temporary solution, lateral movement, a Band-aid on the wound) or if they are looking for career opportunities in the US. In either case, the choices they make will affect them positively or negatively for the rest of their lives.
Outdated Hiring Methods
How many jobs require a university degree? And how many recruiters place an overemphasis on the importance of a university degree?
There are many paths to success. We have heard testimony after testimony from successful business leaders as to the different journeys they undertook to eventually get to the top of the metaphoric mountain. This reality has helped the more forward-thinking recruiters to move off of the narrow-minded notion that the career path is an extension of someone’s academic training. Having a dogmatic over-reliance on university degrees is an outdated hiring practice.
The same could be said in regard to years of experience. Today’s more forward-thinking recruiters are more interested in a candidate’s soft skills (also known as transferable skills): their ability to learn and adapt, their communication and interpersonal skills, etc.
In a fast-changing business environment, placing a dogmatic over-reliance on the years of experience is an outdated hiring practice.
And the recruitment process itself has also undergone many significant changes in recent years. Gone are the mandatory in-person interviews. They simply aren’t needed when video conferencing is so readily available. Plus, with the increasing amount of remote work opportunities, in many instances, it is likely the employer and the employee will never physically meet even after they’ve been hired.
How Companies Like Lensa Make a Difference
By using data-driven AI technology, Lensa is able to share insights into complete career trajectories in all sectors of activity that empower job seekers to make educated career choices.
The result is that recruiters get candidates that are a better fit for the job and the company culture while job seekers are in a better position to put their talents to use and grow in their careers.
By focusing on upward mobility, job seekers are empowered to get off the treadmill of lateral movements. This is essential to career empowerment. If we want to move forward, we have to stop this cycle of sideways movement job seekers often fall into.
The Benefits of AI-Powered Search Engines
Artificial intelligence is able to analyze millions of data points in milliseconds. This allows the job search to explore far more possibilities while narrowing down the search to what best meets specific criteria and priorities.
In addition to clearly seeing the details and the fine print, artificial intelligence is also able to step back and get a clear vision of the big picture. AI-powered search engines like the one used at Lensa can draw from a detailed analysis of tens of millions of job offers and resumes to gain an understanding of current and probable trends in the job market as well as alternative and diverse career paths.
A clearer understanding of both the details and the big picture, more opportunities, a better fit, and in far less time!
But AI is still a relatively new technology and we are still exploring the possibilities. The results we see today and the prospects for the future are equally exciting. AI continues to evolve, notably in the field of natural language processing. Check out this article for more on the applications of natural language processing in various sectors.
Final Remarks
Knowledge is power. Thus, to give job seekers more power in their careers, we need to equip them with more knowledge about the various career paths that are open to them. AI is helping us do that. And companies like Lensa that incorporate AI into their job search engines are simultaneously expanding and refining the options available to job seekers.
Giving job seekers more knowledge, more power, and better solutions for both the immediate and the long term.
