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by jemka 4824 days ago
For a while I've been thinking about how to provide job seekers with the type of information one usually acquires AFTER working in a position for a certain amount of time. A sort of "if I knew then what I know now" collection of employee data. It wasn't going to be company specific, rather position specific.

After thinking about what people actually WANT, I figured they wouldn't want to wade through thousands (more?) job descriptions. Don't tell me what's out there, just tell me what I would be good at and would like.

So I started to think about a tool that would categorize available jobs based on what people REALLY look for in a job. Users could identify what they (thought) they wanted and the tool would show them jobs that fit.

After many months I was losing interest. Then I recently discovered Aaron Swartz was working on something similar. "...we did agree on another good idea: a wiki to tell students what different jobs are like. That site should be launching soon."[1]

I'm not sure how far Aaron got with the project, but I think the idea is still viable. I often find myself doing a lot of research and job description comparisons to get past the cookie cutter information to attempt to answer the question, "what exactly will I be doing for you?"

Maybe I'm alone, but the majority of job interviews I've had were more about seeking information about the work I was going to be doing. Information I should have had well before I ever applied.

[1]https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget

2 comments

Thanks for sharing. We didn't know about Aaron's project, but it definitely resonates. We definitely agree with you here --> "Information I should had well before I ever applied". Hopefully companies / their employees will answer the questions!
Not completely fleshed out jemka, but we're working on this over at Work for Pie. https://workforpie.com/companies/gallery/

Free for companies to set up a page.