Very coincidentally, I had just tweeted about this when I got a notification about this post. Magic!
The idea I had shared was a bit simpler than what you've presented. You pay a fee for an account on a separate website from LinkedIn or Indeed, but rather than finding listings there, you just receive a finite number of keys to submit with applications. Employers can then use up these keys permanently by clicking a link in an application that takes them to the site. We can easily expand on the idea to be much like what you've suggested: you pay a fee to get an account, and can pay higher and higher fees for better and better keys, like a bronze key for jobs you kinda think you're a good fit for or a pricey platinum key for cases where you're dead certain you'd be a good hire.
Obviously this concept differs strongly in that it involves people spending real money rather than bidding with tokens. But if we could somehow implement a good verification system (so that people can only have 1 account), it's easy to switch to a token system. The advantage of this version is that you don't need to make LinkedIn 2 for it to work, you just need employers to understand the signal and trust it when it's included in an application.
Makes me wonder if access keys tied directly to a .edu student email would make for a good basis for admitting applicants to the platform. Otherwise, it really is a simple question of internalising application costs and that’s a space that could have several creative solutions outside the purely network-driven model we see on some platforms.
My experience as an employer (and an employee) is that many people are delusional about the kind of jobs they are suited for, and even in this system many very poorly qualified people would use all their tokens for jobs they were completely unsuited for and would stand a very small chance of getting.
The primary inefficiency that this mechanism is designed to address is volume, and while the outcome for perspective applicants that aim too high is ultimately suboptimal, it does still resolve the problem of volume. Employers will receive fewer applications, even if some applicants are still underqualified. But I think this does touch on some of the concerns around system gaming and calibration. It might make sense to implement some sort of firm standard for education or experience requirements that has to be met in order for someone to apply, or some kind of measure of job match/likelihood of offer visible to applicants before they apply.
Very coincidentally, I had just tweeted about this when I got a notification about this post. Magic!
The idea I had shared was a bit simpler than what you've presented. You pay a fee for an account on a separate website from LinkedIn or Indeed, but rather than finding listings there, you just receive a finite number of keys to submit with applications. Employers can then use up these keys permanently by clicking a link in an application that takes them to the site. We can easily expand on the idea to be much like what you've suggested: you pay a fee to get an account, and can pay higher and higher fees for better and better keys, like a bronze key for jobs you kinda think you're a good fit for or a pricey platinum key for cases where you're dead certain you'd be a good hire.
Obviously this concept differs strongly in that it involves people spending real money rather than bidding with tokens. But if we could somehow implement a good verification system (so that people can only have 1 account), it's easy to switch to a token system. The advantage of this version is that you don't need to make LinkedIn 2 for it to work, you just need employers to understand the signal and trust it when it's included in an application.
Makes me wonder if access keys tied directly to a .edu student email would make for a good basis for admitting applicants to the platform. Otherwise, it really is a simple question of internalising application costs and that’s a space that could have several creative solutions outside the purely network-driven model we see on some platforms.
My experience as an employer (and an employee) is that many people are delusional about the kind of jobs they are suited for, and even in this system many very poorly qualified people would use all their tokens for jobs they were completely unsuited for and would stand a very small chance of getting.
The primary inefficiency that this mechanism is designed to address is volume, and while the outcome for perspective applicants that aim too high is ultimately suboptimal, it does still resolve the problem of volume. Employers will receive fewer applications, even if some applicants are still underqualified. But I think this does touch on some of the concerns around system gaming and calibration. It might make sense to implement some sort of firm standard for education or experience requirements that has to be met in order for someone to apply, or some kind of measure of job match/likelihood of offer visible to applicants before they apply.