1 – What was the Switch App?
2 – What happened to the Switch App?
3 – What was the Jobr App?
4 – What happened to the Jobr App?
5 – The benefits of Job Swiping
6 – The problem with Job Swiping
Tinder might have revolutionised how we find love, but did you know that in 2014 an entrepreneur called Yarden Tadmor thought it could revolutionise how we find work?
Following a frustrating career working as a recruiter for tech start-up companies, Yarden realised that the average time-to-hire across his industry was far too long and candidates were dropping off in great numbers. In an interview with The Washington Post he said;
“We operate on the five-second resume principle, which is usually the amount of time a recruiter spends on a resume. They scan through the typical data points and move on.”,
What was the Switch App?
The Switch App was a downloadable app – like Tinder – that let a jobseeker “swipe” through jobs. A candidate would create an account, upload a full CV or resume, fill in their location details, and then simply start swiping! Employers would upload job profiles, with job descriptions, salaries, and more, and if any of them caught the candidate’s eye, they’d simply swipe right! One swipe would equal one CV being automatically sent to the recruiter.
What happened to Switch?
The question should be more like – what happened to Switch, Jobr, Quickily, Workruit, and all of the other Tinder-For-Jobs apps that appeared around the mid-2010s but have since disappeared! Interviews are abound around the internet, but none of these apps have working websites that we could find. None of these apps are available on Apple or Google’s App Store, so what on earth happened?
Switch was the largest – with over $2 million in seed funding back in 2015. They continued to grow up until July 2021, expanding their headcount, but then suddenly that growth stopped. Meanwhile, Tadmor’s other start-up – LiveKick – continues to go strong.
What was the Jobr App?
Similar to Switch, Jobr’s purpose was to make the painful process of seeking out a job easier and quicker. They were, in fact, a direct competitor that also raised almost $2 million in seed funding. Candidates would connect their Linkedin account and create a profile from there. Then the fun begins – swiping through jobs in a similar fashion to Switch.
Each vacancy had a page that offered information about company culture, the employee value proposition (EVP), the job requirements. The more impressive functionality – and the differentiator from Switch was that it would tell you which skills matched your CV and it would tell the candidate who they knew there, filtering this data from their phone contacts.
Jobr also offered tools for recruiters that let them manage and interact with applicants.
What happened to Jobr?
Jobr relied heavily on Linkedin, and unfortunately for the app, LinkedIn eventually locked down its API, so the app had to resort to Facebook logins and CV uploads from cloud services like Dropbox or Google. Despite this setback, Jobr was eventually bought by Monster. From the TechCrunch article, the acquisition announcement came with this statement:
“The app is not being shut down, but will rather be integrated with Monster’s platform further, though it already featured Monster.com job listings prior to this deal.”
The app was shut down. Jobr no longer has a website, nor has an available app on IOS today. However all of the features have been integrated with Monster’s own app.
The benefits of job swiping
Job swiping is incredibly convenient – and that means more candidates! In today’s candidate-driven market, recruiters need to remove as many barriers as possible to encourage candidates to apply, it’s why we’ve completely overhauled our own candidate experience to help our clients recruit faster.
Job swiping also ensures your vacancies are reaching candidates where they are, rather than where you want them to be. Over half of candidates apply for jobs through their phones, and if you don’t have a mobile-friendly candidate experience, you’re missing out on the candidates who are there. Apps like Jobr or Switch will always be mobile-friendly!
The problem with job swiping
Convenience is great, and will reduce your time to hire, but there is such a thing as too convenient. In their earlier iterations, Jobr and Switch made it easy for any type of candidate apply for your job.
An undergraduate looking for part-time work might be recommended a managing director job in their area, meaning your recruitment team will need to waste time sifting through applications that just aren’t suitable. CV Parsing – the method through which these apps work – is fantastic for making the application process simple and easy, but there isn’t any evidence that Jobr or Switch used screening (or killer) questions to filter out suitable candidates.
If you’re looking for a mobile-friendly candidate experience, a process that reduces your time-to-hire, and a candidate journey that increases your reach, quality and quantity of jobseekers, job-swiping apps might not be the place for you, but our applicant tracking system offers all of this and much more. Talk to us here.