One Stop Apply

On July 25, 2011, in HR Technology, HR Trends, HRExaminer, Job Boards, by John Sumser


The news hit the streets this morning. Though insiders have been chattering about it for months, the public discovered LinkedIn’s new apply button today. For the simple addition of 8 lines of code, any employer can facilitate the use of a single, universal application. LinkedIn has built the right relationships with ATS vendors and more are coming online.

From the job-seeker’s side, the “Apply With LinkedIn” feature appears as a button placed alongside a job description on a company’s jobs webpage. When a user clicks on the “Apply With LinkedIn” button, a pop-up lightbox appears over the page with a prompt to sign into LinkedIn. The user is then given the option to edit parts of his or her LinkedIn profile and contact information and may be asked to answer additional questions. The user finalizes the application by clicking a “Submit Application” button. Finally, the lightbox displays an application confirmation, and displays either additional job openings at that company or a list of the user’s LinkedIn contacts who are affiliated with the company to which he or she has just applied. (GigaOm)

Talk about a slam dunk.

With the bulk of people who use resumes to apply for work already in their database, LinkedIn’s move sets them up as the alternative resume. Once the kinks are out of the ATS integrations, the world will have changed. LinkedIn will own the point of application for professional job seekers.

That’s about 30% of the North American workforce and 10% of the global base.

Then there’s the rub.Apply with LinkedIn

The linkedIn move is brilliant in its simplicity and its reach. But, it is anything but social. By cementing itself at the heart of the transactional parts of recruiting, LinkedIn is threatening its own long term growth.

The internal team at LinkedIn must be doing a happy dance. Each company that uses the new one stop apply program has immediately volunteered to be a part of the LinkedIn sales team’s lead flow. In a single move, the company has saved themselvers Billions of dollars in market development.

But, it isn’t social, it’s transactional. What LinkedIn has done is to change the locus of the battle. What was once a question of timing and data is about to become a question of investment in relationships. The new LinkedIn apply button will force the competition out from the point of application and into the talent pipeline.

It’s really good news for the market even if it’s bad news for Monster, CareerBuilder and Dice and only moderately good news for LinkedIn. (I say moderate becasue the gains, though handsome, are pretty short term.)

I wonder which job board will be the first to embace the new era? There will be a stampede, to be sure.

So, hang on to your hats. Now that the point of application problem is solved, watch for the innovation that this sparks as vendors and candidates adapt to the new reality.

 

About the author

John Sumser

John Sumser is the founder, principal author and editor-in-chief of the HRExaminer Online Magazine. John explores the people, technology, ideas and careers of senior leaders in Human Resources and Human Capital. John is the also principal of Two Color Hat where he routinely advises Human Resources, Recruiting Departments and Talent Management teams with product analysis, market segmentation, positioning, strategy and branding guidance.

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  • http://wiresandtubes.com JoshuaKahn

    I’d argue the act of applying in and of itself isn’t social.  

    However, there’s lot’s of social stuff around the act of applying.  As an applicant wouldn’t it be interesting to know, who in my social graph works here now, or has ever worked here.  Sure and applicant can research this on their own easy enough, but even better if the technology takes the manual search effort out of that. 

    Great if the LinkedIN button greases the skids to apply, that’s what technology should do, and it should’ve (and technically could’ve) been done a long time ago.  What they should do is enable hooks into an applicants social graph because that’s what people do anyway.  They see who they know. It’d be interesting to give the applicant the option of sharing that with the company they are applying to as well.  

  • http://amitaigivertz.com Amitai Givertz

    Once again we have managed to streamline a broken process. Bravo!

    Does anyone think this will improve response rates from recruiters who, in the main, remain unresponsive to candidates? Are candidates likely to be more or less disappointed that this “alternative” produces no better results than whatever preceded it? 

    On the other hand, are recruiters going to see better qualified candidates coming from LinkedIn? Somehow I doubt it.

  • JP Winker

    This gap between relationships and transactional hiring processes isn’t going away. And the LinkedIn group hasn’t shown any interest in addressing it. Although they’re in position to make an impact, its not their strength. 

    The relationship gap lives in the hiring side, where users work to extend existing skills instead of reshaping the paradigm. So, to the extent LinkedIn behaves like a job board, they’re happy and they buy. 

    The challenge, of course, is that social media has the capacity to change the game. LinkedIn isn’t up to the challenge and never has been. They had a neat idea, struggled to monetize it over a decade, and eventually fell back on recruitment advertising. There are ancillary revenues too, but the model merely extends a paradigm that may fade in favor of relationship media. With some effort, job boards will eventually level the playing field, but its not clear who will really change the game. 

  • http://www.hrexaminer.com John Sumser

    Exactly.

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