Some desperate job seekers who did not have a built-in network of key industry acquaintances are now turning to dating apps to help them find jobs. According to a recent survey by ResumeBuilder.com, one in three users have used a dating app to find a job, while nearly one in ten said it was their primary purpose for being on the app. Sixty-six percent of respondents to the survey said they look for users who work at companies they want to be a part of, and 75% said they intentionally match with people working in specific roles they hope to fill.
“Networking is the only way people are rising above the horror show of the job search today,” Stacey Haller, chief career advisor at ResumeBuilder.com, told Bloomberg on Monday.
88% of those who used apps to find a job said they successfully connected with someone for professional reasons. For most, this means getting guidance or career advice, landing an interview, getting a job lead, or getting a referral. Thirty-seven percent said they even got a job offer from it.
Some had the best of both worlds, with 38% of respondents saying they got physical with the person they hooked up with in order to find a job.
Although networking has been a major topic of discussion in career development for some time now, the increasing reliance on AI to automate the early stages of application review has made this practice even more important. AI systems can save companies a lot of time by scanning applicants’ resumes and cover letters in a matter of seconds, but the process often suffers from biases built into the algorithms.
At the end of the day, AI is not the best tool for selecting the most qualified candidates, but companies continue to rely on the technology because they have not yet found a cheap way to deal with the huge volume of applications they receive for a single posting, which is due to the rising unemployment rate and the increased convenience in sending job applications due to platforms like LinkedIn and once again AI.
So, no matter how qualified you are for a job, there is a very real possibility that a computer algorithm will outright reject you at the first or second stage of the job search, before your application is even seen by human eyes. This is where networking comes in, as referrals increasingly become the only sure way to get your resume evaluated by a real human being.
But networking is easier said than done. A job market that is increasingly dependent on networking is bound to have greater inequality, as job seekers from privileged backgrounds have an undeniable edge in the networking process thanks to pre-existing networks.
According to Cornell professor John McCarthy, this partly AI-driven increase in inequality is a trend we are already starting to see come into force, which is why job seekers are increasingly desperate to help close the gap. According to the survey, 42% of respondents said they were networking on dating apps because of the difficult job market, 29% said it was because they were desperate to find work or advance in their careers, and 22% said they lacked networking opportunities elsewhere.
Although the survey said that Tinder and Bumble, two apps that do not promote professional use, were most used for this purpose, there are many dating apps that take the initiative to provide this experience.
Most notably, Raya is an exclusive, referral-only, and subscription-based dating app that calls itself “a private community for people around the world to connect and collaborate.” Although it is mostly known as a dating app, users can connect with others by searching for specific industries, roles, or companies.
LGBTQ dating app Grindr also adopts similar usage. AJ Ballance, Grindr’s chief product officer, told Bloomberg that about a quarter of its 15 million monthly average users were using the app for networking.
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