Despite unemployment rates that are reaching record highs, it may come as a surprise — and somewhat of a silver lining — to many job seekers to learn that according to the Department of Labor, there are actually close to 7 million jobs available in the United States.
As both job seekers and employers alike understand, many of the job posts appear on multiple job boards. LinkedIn, Google for Jobs, CareerBuilder…the list goes on.
But what if we told you that despite all of these huge and extremely popular job posting sites, there are millions of jobs that job seekers cannot find? There are 7 million jobs available in the U.S. And there are over 33 million people unemployed, in need of work. However, thousands upon thousands of jobs will go unfilled simply because people who need work literally can’t find the jobs online.
Needless to say, that’s a problem. Not just from an operations and efficiency standpoint, but from a moral one as well.
Let’s look a bit closer at this problem.
Doing the Math
Something interesting happens when you try to get online job advertisements to add up.
On average, LinkedIn has about 4 million job listings.
With a total of 6 to 7 million estimated job listings open and available, and with the top and largest job boards only showing 2 to 4 million, where are the other ~4 million available job listings?
Company Job Posting Sites
The answer is simple: company career websites. These job posts fall into two categories of companies. First, some companies post all of their jobs on their internal career sites — and exclusively on their career sites. Others, meanwhile, post on their career sites and on job boards.
For example, Birnie Bus — the 12th largest bus company in the US and employer of over 900 people — exclusively posts their job openings on their career website. You won’t find their jobs on LinkedIn, Indeed, CareerBuilder, etc. The openings exist, but there’s no easy or accessible way for job seekers to find them.
The second type of job posts are more common — and more common with large companies.
Jobiak analyzed career pages for over 220 companies and organizations who are hiring. Household brands like Apple, Microsoft and Bank of America. Lowes, FedEx, Fidelity, and John Deere. These organizations span verticals, not to mention who their target employee would be.
We also found non-household names like Boone County Hospital, the City of Cuyahoga Falls, and Jordi Labs. These organizations that might not carry the same weight as Apple, but still employ scores of people and provide good jobs nonetheless.
What they all had in common was that they only post some of their jobs externally, searchable through job boards or Google for Jobs.
The rest are trapped on their internal career pages.
So, what to do?
Getting to Work
We live in an age where technology has the ability to do wonderful things. We can video chat with people on the other side of the world. Our mirrors offer us the ability to perform augmented workouts. With the touch of a finger, so much is possible.
Yet — somehow — millions of jobs can’t be found while millions of people are looking for work in a decline comparable to the Great Depression?
Did you know that 73 percent of job seekers start their search on Google? But it still remains hugely complex to fit the structured data requirements for many companies to get their job posts onto Google for Jobs. And duplicate, expired and fraudulent posts clog up GFJ (and organic) search results. It needs to be cleaned up so people can find jobs.
We can do better. We have to do better.
Because Google is just one example of how the online candidate experience can be improved.
Before long, our government leaders may have to step in and mandate improvements to help people get to work.
One other way these companies could do that is by partnering with smaller, more nimble ones that specialize in securing accurate and thorough job data such as openings, applications, job titles, job location, etc. This would ensure they are providing better results for their users, ultimately getting people to work faster.
Finding a Solution
That brings us to the work we’re doing.
One of Jobiak’s main missions is to make recruitment efficient, effective, and candidate-focused, which is why it’s so important to call attention to issues like this one that goes against that vision of online recruitment.
Over 33 million people are without jobs right now. Over 7 million jobs are open. It should be easier to connect the two sides.
So that’s where we’re focusing our efforts — today. Our ‘All Jobs’ solution, which we’re launching shortly, is going to scrape and host 100% of every job online. This will give job seekers complete access to all available jobs rather than just a fraction of them. And it will give employers access to 100% of the job market.
This will allow people to get back to work faster and employers to scale their hiring at a critical point in time. People need work, and employers have jobs to fill, and we intend to help solve both of those problems.
If you’re interested in hearing more about this effort, we invite you to contact us today.
Indeed averages around 2 – 2.5 million job listings.
When thinking about LinkedIn vs Google for Jobs vs Indeed, Indeed’s numbers tend to be a bit more realistic compared to other job posting sites like LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and the like because Indeed doesn’t work with staffing agencies or job boards that pull their listings alongside original ones.
So, the actual number of jobs available is probably closer Indeed’s number than LinkedIn’s.
