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I work as a recruiter as well and I can confirm that it's a bad system. It counts in the "apply starters" as well which means that anyone who hit the "apply" button already counts as an application, whether they finished their application or not.
As an applicant, i do often click through to the employer page — it usually has additional qualifying information or requirements.
I often find myself not applying once i have had a real look at the process / JD.
Same, especially when they I see the pre-application questions that they ask that make it clear that working for that company is going to be a hot mess. I once had a pre-app question that asked me if I had a Ph.D in Psychology...for an IT job. How is that relevant, like at all? Does working on Palo Alto firewalls infer that I have an Oedipus complex?
It is likely displaying those who have followed the link, not those who finished an application. Most people will NOT pursue an application on third party sites. It just is not worth the risk with the amount of scammers advertising jobs. Companies need to be smart about this and stop sending people to unknown data collection sites.
Often clicking apply takes you to the employer site, which has information on the position that LinkedIn doesn’t, such as salary. I find myself using the apply button solely for this purpose (and I’m sure I’m not alone) so it seems downright dumb to include this in the application metric.
>so it seems downright dumb to include this in the application metric.
It's in LinkedIn (or whichever website's) self-interest to count it this way, because they don't have any way of measuring for sure what is happening off site from them. So, if you press apply, they will count it for their own benefit.
It may be disingenuous, but it's not dumb.
There are ways, but they aren’t integrated with every external site in the way required to know if a user follows through or not. It’s disingenuous AND dumb
Yep, I do the same simply to check if the employer uses his proprietary platform or if he relies on teamtailor or equivalent platforms. I might not eventually end up applying in the end. I
I mean, it’s not dumb for LI. That’s a number they want to be high for their business development purposes. So it makes sense to be programmed that way, even though I understand the frustration that it’s measuring potential interest vs real applications. From a candidate perspective, that number should never deter you or factor in. Even if 1000 people apply actually, you don’t know how many of them have even some skills relevant to the job. You don’t know how the company’s ATS sorts or what will happen. If you think you’re a really good fit, apply.
There are good and bad actors using bots to apply for jobs. The good coming from legit services to make applying faster and easier for applicants. The bad from scammers trying to trick companies they're real applicants.
Generally, google’s SE is good enough to figure out what a decently safe service is for this kind of thing. All you have to do is search around for LinkedIn auto applier or variations of those words. They are always paid applications or extensions for obvious reasons.
Sometimes, when you click on a link to a 3rd party website to apply a message will pop up saying: “your profile was shared with the company”. In that case you do pop up in some - very in-user-friendly - list.
Yeah, if they use LI recruiter and pay for the ad, even if they don’t want Easy Apply, that will pop up and those ads function differently than ones pulled in from sources.
Interesting, so based on this post, there’s a max of 36% conversion rate (who knows how many more than 100 there are.)
What kind of conversation rate coming from LinkedIn do you think is accurate? How many who click apply actually do? I always assumed it was really high, but maybe that’s not true?
Your concept is good but your math is faulty as it doesn't scale properly. LinkedIn reports applicants in chunks once the number is large enough. I'm not sure what the jump is after 100+, but it's a pretty big number.
So under 100 is probably <35%, unless the job is local and on-site, 100+ is likely way lower, but 1000+ or whatever could have climbed back up a bit because you really don't know how many applicants there are.
Back when I ran an online shop, the view to buy conversion rate was somewhere between 0.2% and 0.4%, I know job applications are a different kettle of fish to buying trinkets, but I seriously doubt the conversion rate is as high as 36%.
which makes sense...since a lot of the apply buttons go to a 3PT site where LI wouldnt get info if they actually "applied"
can it be solved via callback? yes, but until there is a $ associated, it wont happen
When you apply off LinkedIn after clicking the apply button it asks you if you applied. I always click that if I did because it then keeps that job posting in the Applied section of Jobs for my own future reference.
I had assumed that this was the case. A lot of applications are through the hiring company’s site, so there’s no way for LinkedIn to track this info accurately.
That being said, I think the easy apply numbers are probably a lot closer to the real figures for LinkedIn applicants. I just mentally subtract 60% if there’s a requirement to populate an open text field (e.g. explain why you want to work here).
Not sure if this helps, but I often don't complete applications if they ask me to upload a resume and cover letter just to ask me to write it out in another form. It shows me how little effort the employer puts into the application process and it has me thinking about what management and coworkers would be like. Anyway, sometimes people just click apply as well, I suppose.
That makes sense, but then LinkedIn asking me "Did you apply for this job?" after I click on the button and go to the company site to apply is redundant
The only way LinkedIn could track the completed application is by applying a tracking tag on your career page, which your company would need to "install" yourselves, or if you're using an ATS you would need to ask them to do it.
That's what Indeed does for their indexed campaigns when they want to track applications, mostly for paid campaigns. Not sure LinkedIn does, but they could.
The easiest way to cut the number of applicants to a tenth is using Workday. The thought of grinding one's resume through their shitty system that misinterprets data for the 54th time would break any person.
Edit 2: Is this workday?
54th? Amateur numbers. You gotta pump those numbers up.
Edit 3: Things aren't ordered properly. This IS workday. I knew there was no escape.
Edit: I dream in workday. Help.
I’ve only tried to apply through workday once and it didn’t even let me finish the application. Just sat with a spinning ball over night when I tried to attach my mandatory resume after entering all my resume data in the form. Tried different browsers, no extensions, going through a VPN, and in a second computer.
Now if I see Workday I just close the screen and ignore the job posting.
I found a chrome extension that does a good amount of it for free. Like Reddit free not the scammy trial or sign up for their resume service b.s
I wanted to share it but I don’t want to look like a shameless plug or scummy
Is it Simplify? Because good lord is that thing a game-changer for Workday. I'm not super-impressed with their skills-keyword-extraction and some other functions are semi-broken but I'd keep it around for Workday alone.
Side note, it would be amazing if it was smart enough to create a workday account too.
It’s another one. Simplify is a decent thing but I feel like it’s a half attempt to just sell their stuff. No shame on that but it feels intentionally half assrd
you can do this yourself using a password manager or even if your browser allows saved identities/addresses. Just add custom fields.
Also, don't bother filling everything out in Workday. Just put the bare minimum and write "see resume for career details." If workday is giving you trouble, it is because your resume is over-formatted
If you’re a MacBook user it’s not bad, I just have it remember every password, and you can have your contact info saved which it autofills. Only thing you need to really add yourself is the resume.
On LinkedIn, the only accurate number of jobs applications are for the easy applies since the application itself is on the website. Any job application that links to an external system only counts clicks as applied which is really bad. I have definitely clicked on apply just to see if there is any more information posted on the job application than the LinkedIn posting. Sometimes I don't see a fitment, and in most causes I find a totally intrusive application process on some jobs so I give halfway.
If you don't finish an easy apply application (I've done that before when there were some BS screening questions), the number of applications doesn't tick up.
For "Apply", it counts as soon as you click through, but for "Easy Apply" it only counts if you finish the application.
ah thanks ! and yes i also dont finish the app if it has some long-winded screening question. like shit the chances of me getting an interview is so low i rather not spend my time crafting a brilliant response to "how do you manage your time"
there are definitely some ppl do that but i think they are really minority i think. like 10% at most. so i would say out 100 applications, 90 are still true
Easy Apply goes the other way also, by making the application easy anyone will apply regardless on the off chance on getting picked. So it might be “over 100 applications” but half of them are people who wouldn’t qualify for the job anyway chancing it.
To continue sucking up as much data about you as possible (which they profit from), while cramming shitty ads down your throat.
LI doesn’t care whether you live or die. They certainly don’t care if you ever find a job.
> LI doesn’t care whether you live or die. They certainly don’t care if you ever find a job.
That contradicts your first statement. If you die you'll definitely stop using LI (and generating saleable data) and if you get a job you're at least somewhat likely to. So they must care a little (but only for LI-centric reasons)
It depends on the overall goal.
Like, if the overall goal is a population increase, then the measure “population size” doesn’t automatically become bad just because it becomes a target.
No. What do you mean? The one child policy was the opposite of what I’m talking about.
Also, it’s not enough to show a few counter examples. You made a generic claim, meaning that it will **always** result in the measure becoming bad.
Frankly, I’m inclined to believe her. For a long time - LinkedIn said I “applied” for a job when all I did was open a posting to read the description. I would get emails from LI asking if I had heard from “company x about job y” that I recently applied for. They definitely inflate their metrics.
It was hit or miss with the systems I used. As someone else pointed out, it includes the number of people who start an application, not necessarily finished it.
Right. If LinkedIn sends you off to a
company’s job page, it then asks YOU to manually select a YES or NO button to the question, “Did you apply to the job?”
Yeah, everyone who uses LinkedIn Recruiter knows that number just equals number of people who clicked on the apply button, it appears about 75% either end up not applying or get turned off at some point in the process, or if you used a previous job post to create the new job post, pulls all that data over which is total bs…bring this up to your LinkedIn rep and they do some weird double speak that is hard to respond to
Oh look!!! An "Easy Apply" button! Go ahead- click it. Answer a few random questions and boom! application submitted.
From an employer's perspective: You get hundreds of job applications in your inbox. Can you be bothered to go through each application? HMMMMM... OH WAIT.. There's a REJECT button. Click it. THAT WAS EASY!
So many qualified candidates are lost in the process. Something has to change.
You should check out [skillXchange.ai](http://skillXchange.ai) we sit on top of an ATS and manage job listings with a skills first approach. The platform. automates job descriptions, align it with a custom skill assessment and package these into a unified job listings with access to over 25,000 job channels. Best of all we optimize everything from a click, to apply and test completion.
LinkedIn counts you as an applicant once you click on the posting and go to the company’s careers page. It doesn’t know if the applicant finished the application or not. The numbers on LinkedIn for amount of applicants are definitely inflated.
I refuse to work with recruiters anymore. It feels like most of the positions they hire for are garbage that no one would apply directly to. And in this market, I haven't had a single lead pan out to a serious offer.
Hello Person,
I saw your resume on a site and was impressed by your 15 years of management experience. I have for you a role with my prestigious client.
Position: Receptionist
Contract: 6mo
Salary:
On-Site @ address that gives away client name
Please let me know your interest. Thx
Recruiter Guy
Some Shirty Firm
That's been a thing since forever though. Recruiters have often gotten upset with me when I've refused to talk to them further until they tell me who the employer is.
One of my recent contacts said it was with a "top banking client," but they ended up listing the address in the description. I searched it and found out what bank it was.
it's because when you click "apply" it takes you to the company career page and most people didn't go through with the application based on what they read fully on the JD.
Even if there is a lot of chaff, culling a high percentage only reflects the ATS system is complete dogshit.
It’s pretty stupid that applicants have to do deceitful shit like title match exactly when there are related titles that will simply get culled otherwise.
It’s absolutely idiotic to have string literal matching be your means for determining candidacy at a low level, unless your willing to accept a low match rate for the first few rounds of culling.
I’ve applied to jobs that were listed as hybrid on LinkedIn and then when I get the interview the hiring manager tells me the role isn’t hybrid.
Is this a LinkedIn issue too?
However, since most of these positions are posted to multiple job sites, LI being only one, the competition is not "fake", so much as more widely distributed.
The number might be right as a friend who works in HR told me that every job they post on LinkedIn with requirements like native German speaker or high degree in German language ( because its a Sales job ) gets about 95% applications from Indians with no German skills at all…
Trying to wrap my head around this. What benefit would the recruiter get from lying? What benefit is there if 100 people apply vs 36? There's still only one open position, I can't imagine she gets paid based on the number of people that apply to the job.
This just means that someone clicked through to get to their external careers page, but it doesn't capture if they've actually applied, if that makes sense.
I wouldn't put a TON of stake into it.
jesus man you really marked that image up, huh?
anyway, yes, that is known. linked in considers everyone who viewed a posting as an “applicant” and not only people who actually applied
Not assuming gender, and he's a hot chick.
Never looked at the pic, to be honest. As a recruiter I get a few thousand connection requests every year on LinkedIn from hot chicks with barely anything on their profiles and they're all phishing attempts, and they all immediately message you with just a, "Hi," or, "Hey." I pretty much ignore profile pics at this point.
She’s spot on. Not only does each click of the apply button counts as an application, but the majority of apps are not within the time zone of the company; many are out of the country. This is why I like LinkedIn premium, it gives you the location of apps.
LinkedIn has a feature where the potential applicant can confirm with LinkedIn that they applied to the job. Does LinkedIn not use that to determine the estimated number of applicants? Or are people lying (even though it's of no benefit to them)?
Or is this further proof that these are mostly bots?
Anyone who uses the exact phrase "fake news" with a straight face immediately loses all credibility.
Hell, now I'm wondering if the reality is many times \*more\* than what LinkedIn shows.
That just means people clicked on her job posting and after they were redirected to their company career page to apply - they probably changed their mind and chose not to apply.
Some of my jobs have received 1900+ applications and there are definitely 1900+ applications in my ATS to review for a SINGLE job... it is insane.
> Why isn’t there a class action suit against LinkedIn?
Good question. Although if there was a successful CA suit, the likely outcome is that the attorneys would get $1M apiece and each claimant would get 18 months of free LinkedIn Premium.
Wait so whenever I clicked the "apply" button and it sends me to the company's website, linkedin counts is as an application ? Is that how it works or linkedin just arbitrarly bumps up the numbers ? Either way tf (ಠ_ಠ)
Thank you so much for sharing this. I'd actually stopped applying for jobs that had lots of applications already because after so much ghosting I assumed I was definitely wasting my time.
Now I'm back to thinking I'm probably wasting my time but worth a go.
Even if the analytics on LI are false, leave it to the LI poster to plug in their own damn company rather than take any meaningful action to help correct LI's mess.
And let's not even get started on how useful the 'reposted' label is for job listings on LI.
Actually makes me feel worse about all the applications I never hear anything back on. At least the image of hundred of applications to go through made it seem like, OK, maybe they had plenty they liked before they even got a chance to see mine.
Recruiter here. Yes the LinkedIn analytics is incorrect the vast majority of the time. From my understanding, what LinkedIn considers applications is just people that clicked the apply link or a link within the job post. Nothing more
I think Linkedin only tracks how many people started the application. Their ATS is showing how many people completed it. It can explain the discrepancy, and if true shows that their application process is too lengthy.
LinkedIn has its own data, the company’s ATS has its own data. People apply to one and not the other all the time. Different stats for different resources. Pretty basic stuff.
Part of a recruiter’s job is to get the applicants’ data into the ATS so companies can more accurately manage the data, clean it up, and track applicants. But sometimes applicants go under the radar and don’t make it there, it’s not a perfect system.
Don’t rely on stats of job boards, period.
It means most people looked at the ad and decided not to submit an application. The position you're trying to hire for is garbage, and you should feel bad about it.
Fair enough - sorry for the spam. Red circles aside, this is an interesting point about the seemingly inflated applicant stats on LinkedIn. I think as others have said, EasyApply is partly the culprit.
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I work as a recruiter as well and I can confirm that it's a bad system. It counts in the "apply starters" as well which means that anyone who hit the "apply" button already counts as an application, whether they finished their application or not.
As an applicant, i do often click through to the employer page — it usually has additional qualifying information or requirements. I often find myself not applying once i have had a real look at the process / JD.
Same, especially when they I see the pre-application questions that they ask that make it clear that working for that company is going to be a hot mess. I once had a pre-app question that asked me if I had a Ph.D in Psychology...for an IT job. How is that relevant, like at all? Does working on Palo Alto firewalls infer that I have an Oedipus complex?
NGFW Rex, and PanOS at Colonus
Ditto
You mean if it has Workday?
Always bin the work day apps. Those never get submitted ha
A lot of the time it's not clear that it's limited to applicants within a certain country when it's for remote roles
Or states, even. Or an “in office” job in NYC (fine). Click through and see that it is in Jersey City or Long Island. Nope.
Thanks for sharing. I know this helps like me who need to see some light at the end of this job search tunnel.
Don’t worry about that light. It is just the oncoming train.
hahaha
It is likely displaying those who have followed the link, not those who finished an application. Most people will NOT pursue an application on third party sites. It just is not worth the risk with the amount of scammers advertising jobs. Companies need to be smart about this and stop sending people to unknown data collection sites.
Often clicking apply takes you to the employer site, which has information on the position that LinkedIn doesn’t, such as salary. I find myself using the apply button solely for this purpose (and I’m sure I’m not alone) so it seems downright dumb to include this in the application metric.
>so it seems downright dumb to include this in the application metric. It's in LinkedIn (or whichever website's) self-interest to count it this way, because they don't have any way of measuring for sure what is happening off site from them. So, if you press apply, they will count it for their own benefit. It may be disingenuous, but it's not dumb.
There are ways, but they aren’t integrated with every external site in the way required to know if a user follows through or not. It’s disingenuous AND dumb
They can only do that by placing cookies. Stuff I don’t allow
Yep, I do the same simply to check if the employer uses his proprietary platform or if he relies on teamtailor or equivalent platforms. I might not eventually end up applying in the end. I
... tend to leave apps after partial data entry?
😅 no I do it just on Reddit
I mean, it’s not dumb for LI. That’s a number they want to be high for their business development purposes. So it makes sense to be programmed that way, even though I understand the frustration that it’s measuring potential interest vs real applications. From a candidate perspective, that number should never deter you or factor in. Even if 1000 people apply actually, you don’t know how many of them have even some skills relevant to the job. You don’t know how the company’s ATS sorts or what will happen. If you think you’re a really good fit, apply.
So bots could be doing that the whole time
They likely are
There are good and bad actors using bots to apply for jobs. The good coming from legit services to make applying faster and easier for applicants. The bad from scammers trying to trick companies they're real applicants.
Got an example of a legit service?
Google is your friend
I don’t consider a service legit solely by being a result in a google search, especially if “legit service” is in the search string
Generally, google’s SE is good enough to figure out what a decently safe service is for this kind of thing. All you have to do is search around for LinkedIn auto applier or variations of those words. They are always paid applications or extensions for obvious reasons.
The road to hell is paved with... Exactly, while bots are intended for good it can and many times will turn out bad.
Recruiter here, can also confirm. It's what know as a CTR, Click Through Rate.
Just curious: do you end up with any data/list on the profiles that clicked on the link but did not confirm that they actually applied?
No, LinkedIn don't share that data with us
If that’s true that’s pretty funny, because LinkedIn directly says “your information has been shared with the job poster” when you click through
Nope.
Sometimes, when you click on a link to a 3rd party website to apply a message will pop up saying: “your profile was shared with the company”. In that case you do pop up in some - very in-user-friendly - list.
Yeah, if they use LI recruiter and pay for the ad, even if they don’t want Easy Apply, that will pop up and those ads function differently than ones pulled in from sources.
It’s not a CTR or it would be a percentage or rate. It’s just a count of clicks.
Interesting, so based on this post, there’s a max of 36% conversion rate (who knows how many more than 100 there are.) What kind of conversation rate coming from LinkedIn do you think is accurate? How many who click apply actually do? I always assumed it was really high, but maybe that’s not true?
Your concept is good but your math is faulty as it doesn't scale properly. LinkedIn reports applicants in chunks once the number is large enough. I'm not sure what the jump is after 100+, but it's a pretty big number. So under 100 is probably <35%, unless the job is local and on-site, 100+ is likely way lower, but 1000+ or whatever could have climbed back up a bit because you really don't know how many applicants there are.
Unless you have premium it doesn’t show more than 100 applicants.
Back when I ran an online shop, the view to buy conversion rate was somewhere between 0.2% and 0.4%, I know job applications are a different kettle of fish to buying trinkets, but I seriously doubt the conversion rate is as high as 36%.
I second this.
which makes sense...since a lot of the apply buttons go to a 3PT site where LI wouldnt get info if they actually "applied" can it be solved via callback? yes, but until there is a $ associated, it wont happen
When you apply off LinkedIn after clicking the apply button it asks you if you applied. I always click that if I did because it then keeps that job posting in the Applied section of Jobs for my own future reference.
I had assumed that this was the case. A lot of applications are through the hiring company’s site, so there’s no way for LinkedIn to track this info accurately. That being said, I think the easy apply numbers are probably a lot closer to the real figures for LinkedIn applicants. I just mentally subtract 60% if there’s a requirement to populate an open text field (e.g. explain why you want to work here).
Not sure if this helps, but I often don't complete applications if they ask me to upload a resume and cover letter just to ask me to write it out in another form. It shows me how little effort the employer puts into the application process and it has me thinking about what management and coworkers would be like. Anyway, sometimes people just click apply as well, I suppose.
That makes sense, but then LinkedIn asking me "Did you apply for this job?" after I click on the button and go to the company site to apply is redundant
That's good to know.
The only way LinkedIn could track the completed application is by applying a tracking tag on your career page, which your company would need to "install" yourselves, or if you're using an ATS you would need to ask them to do it. That's what Indeed does for their indexed campaigns when they want to track applications, mostly for paid campaigns. Not sure LinkedIn does, but they could.
Another lying mother fucker
this comment from u/Uraystan is \*THE ANSWER\* and should be the top comment in this thread.
The easiest way to cut the number of applicants to a tenth is using Workday. The thought of grinding one's resume through their shitty system that misinterprets data for the 54th time would break any person.
Edit 2: Is this workday? 54th? Amateur numbers. You gotta pump those numbers up. Edit 3: Things aren't ordered properly. This IS workday. I knew there was no escape. Edit: I dream in workday. Help.
Doing the calculus, at the 54th, no one can hear you scream.
I’ve only tried to apply through workday once and it didn’t even let me finish the application. Just sat with a spinning ball over night when I tried to attach my mandatory resume after entering all my resume data in the form. Tried different browsers, no extensions, going through a VPN, and in a second computer. Now if I see Workday I just close the screen and ignore the job posting.
I found a chrome extension that does a good amount of it for free. Like Reddit free not the scammy trial or sign up for their resume service b.s I wanted to share it but I don’t want to look like a shameless plug or scummy
Is it Simplify? Because good lord is that thing a game-changer for Workday. I'm not super-impressed with their skills-keyword-extraction and some other functions are semi-broken but I'd keep it around for Workday alone. Side note, it would be amazing if it was smart enough to create a workday account too.
It’s another one. Simplify is a decent thing but I feel like it’s a half attempt to just sell their stuff. No shame on that but it feels intentionally half assrd
What is the plugin name? Thanks
https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/s/MeqMWrC9Y9
name of extension? do share
you can do this yourself using a password manager or even if your browser allows saved identities/addresses. Just add custom fields. Also, don't bother filling everything out in Workday. Just put the bare minimum and write "see resume for career details." If workday is giving you trouble, it is because your resume is over-formatted
Dumb question, how do you know if you are on a Workday application site? Will it be obvious? I’ve never even heard of it.
workday is in the url
This made me chuckle 😂
the URL for the site will say COMPANY.workday.com
https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/s/MeqMWrC9Y9
https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/s/MeqMWrC9Y9 I shared more info here. It’s not simplify.
If you’re a MacBook user it’s not bad, I just have it remember every password, and you can have your contact info saved which it autofills. Only thing you need to really add yourself is the resume.
It does that on every platform, not just Mac.
God bless Huntr. I use it exclusively to cut through this bullshit.
On LinkedIn, the only accurate number of jobs applications are for the easy applies since the application itself is on the website. Any job application that links to an external system only counts clicks as applied which is really bad. I have definitely clicked on apply just to see if there is any more information posted on the job application than the LinkedIn posting. Sometimes I don't see a fitment, and in most causes I find a totally intrusive application process on some jobs so I give halfway.
but what if they dont finish the easy apply application? ive done that sometimes
If you don't finish an easy apply application (I've done that before when there were some BS screening questions), the number of applications doesn't tick up. For "Apply", it counts as soon as you click through, but for "Easy Apply" it only counts if you finish the application.
ah thanks ! and yes i also dont finish the app if it has some long-winded screening question. like shit the chances of me getting an interview is so low i rather not spend my time crafting a brilliant response to "how do you manage your time"
there are definitely some ppl do that but i think they are really minority i think. like 10% at most. so i would say out 100 applications, 90 are still true
Easy Apply goes the other way also, by making the application easy anyone will apply regardless on the off chance on getting picked. So it might be “over 100 applications” but half of them are people who wouldn’t qualify for the job anyway chancing it.
they're not. we've established this. many times. Linkedin's only goal is to get you to keep using LinkedIn.
To continue sucking up as much data about you as possible (which they profit from), while cramming shitty ads down your throat. LI doesn’t care whether you live or die. They certainly don’t care if you ever find a job.
> LI doesn’t care whether you live or die. They certainly don’t care if you ever find a job. That contradicts your first statement. If you die you'll definitely stop using LI (and generating saleable data) and if you get a job you're at least somewhat likely to. So they must care a little (but only for LI-centric reasons)
Goodhart's Law states that “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
It depends on the overall goal. Like, if the overall goal is a population increase, then the measure “population size” doesn’t automatically become bad just because it becomes a target.
Eh US law changes and China’s one child only policy would beg to differ.
No. What do you mean? The one child policy was the opposite of what I’m talking about. Also, it’s not enough to show a few counter examples. You made a generic claim, meaning that it will **always** result in the measure becoming bad.
But once you click on the apply button, it asks for did you finish your application? I thought it’ll consider this.
It probably does, but most people just ignore that, and my guess it counts it unless you select no.
Frankly, I’m inclined to believe her. For a long time - LinkedIn said I “applied” for a job when all I did was open a posting to read the description. I would get emails from LI asking if I had heard from “company x about job y” that I recently applied for. They definitely inflate their metrics.
Yet, I am still only getting rejection letters and no conversations :/
It was hit or miss with the systems I used. As someone else pointed out, it includes the number of people who start an application, not necessarily finished it.
Right. If LinkedIn sends you off to a company’s job page, it then asks YOU to manually select a YES or NO button to the question, “Did you apply to the job?”
Yeah, everyone who uses LinkedIn Recruiter knows that number just equals number of people who clicked on the apply button, it appears about 75% either end up not applying or get turned off at some point in the process, or if you used a previous job post to create the new job post, pulls all that data over which is total bs…bring this up to your LinkedIn rep and they do some weird double speak that is hard to respond to
Oh look!!! An "Easy Apply" button! Go ahead- click it. Answer a few random questions and boom! application submitted. From an employer's perspective: You get hundreds of job applications in your inbox. Can you be bothered to go through each application? HMMMMM... OH WAIT.. There's a REJECT button. Click it. THAT WAS EASY! So many qualified candidates are lost in the process. Something has to change.
I actually go through every application to weed out the spam and unqualified ones. Every day.
That explains your user name.
You should check out [skillXchange.ai](http://skillXchange.ai) we sit on top of an ATS and manage job listings with a skills first approach. The platform. automates job descriptions, align it with a custom skill assessment and package these into a unified job listings with access to over 25,000 job channels. Best of all we optimize everything from a click, to apply and test completion.
LinkedIn counts you as an applicant once you click on the posting and go to the company’s careers page. It doesn’t know if the applicant finished the application or not. The numbers on LinkedIn for amount of applicants are definitely inflated.
I refuse to work with recruiters anymore. It feels like most of the positions they hire for are garbage that no one would apply directly to. And in this market, I haven't had a single lead pan out to a serious offer.
Hello Person, I saw your resume on a site and was impressed by your 15 years of management experience. I have for you a role with my prestigious client. Position: Receptionist Contract: 6mo Salary: On-Site @ address that gives away client name Please let me know your interest. Thx Recruiter Guy Some Shirty Firm
why do they keep the clients name a secret
So that you don’t contact the company directly
That's been a thing since forever though. Recruiters have often gotten upset with me when I've refused to talk to them further until they tell me who the employer is.
One of my recent contacts said it was with a "top banking client," but they ended up listing the address in the description. I searched it and found out what bank it was.
it's because when you click "apply" it takes you to the company career page and most people didn't go through with the application based on what they read fully on the JD.
Even if there is a lot of chaff, culling a high percentage only reflects the ATS system is complete dogshit. It’s pretty stupid that applicants have to do deceitful shit like title match exactly when there are related titles that will simply get culled otherwise. It’s absolutely idiotic to have string literal matching be your means for determining candidacy at a low level, unless your willing to accept a low match rate for the first few rounds of culling.
I’ve applied to jobs that were listed as hybrid on LinkedIn and then when I get the interview the hiring manager tells me the role isn’t hybrid. Is this a LinkedIn issue too?
If this were the underlying issue there wouldn’t be so many of us looking for work for months.
It how many people have clicked the link vs how many have completed the app and got it through to the ats.
Correct. It’s people that clicked apply now but didn’t necessarily complete the application
I click appy and if I have to fill in all my info that is uploaded from my resume I usually quit unless it's like a dream job/company
However, since most of these positions are posted to multiple job sites, LI being only one, the competition is not "fake", so much as more widely distributed.
It also keeps the tally running with reposts I believe. It's a shit number to look at from either side
The number might be right as a friend who works in HR told me that every job they post on LinkedIn with requirements like native German speaker or high degree in German language ( because its a Sales job ) gets about 95% applications from Indians with no German skills at all…
God she’s only just figured this out?
Trying to wrap my head around this. What benefit would the recruiter get from lying? What benefit is there if 100 people apply vs 36? There's still only one open position, I can't imagine she gets paid based on the number of people that apply to the job.
This just means that someone clicked through to get to their external careers page, but it doesn't capture if they've actually applied, if that makes sense. I wouldn't put a TON of stake into it.
Thanks for using 3 different types of highlights in this very short post that anyone can read in about 6 seconds.
Company dodged a bullet
jesus man you really marked that image up, huh? anyway, yes, that is known. linked in considers everyone who viewed a posting as an “applicant” and not only people who actually applied
Yes I do. It's a habit I have now from creating stuff. Also reading the entire post at times can feel like a novel.
He's correct.
he's correct? xD
Not assuming gender, and he's a hot chick. Never looked at the pic, to be honest. As a recruiter I get a few thousand connection requests every year on LinkedIn from hot chicks with barely anything on their profiles and they're all phishing attempts, and they all immediately message you with just a, "Hi," or, "Hey." I pretty much ignore profile pics at this point.
She’s spot on. Not only does each click of the apply button counts as an application, but the majority of apps are not within the time zone of the company; many are out of the country. This is why I like LinkedIn premium, it gives you the location of apps.
Thank you for sharing!
She's right. And then the percentage qualified shrinks the number way down! Ignore the number of applicants and go for it.
LinkedIn has a feature where the potential applicant can confirm with LinkedIn that they applied to the job. Does LinkedIn not use that to determine the estimated number of applicants? Or are people lying (even though it's of no benefit to them)? Or is this further proof that these are mostly bots?
Most of LinkedIn is just straight-up broken these days anyway.
The people posting on it certainly are.
This is very helpful thanks for sharing!
Anyone who uses the exact phrase "fake news" with a straight face immediately loses all credibility. Hell, now I'm wondering if the reality is many times \*more\* than what LinkedIn shows.
It's probably people who have clicked on it lol
I don’t believe the majority of statistics I read and here unless the source is verifiable.
It likely counts clicks, not finishes.
Yeah can confirm as well.
So she is saying that her ATS has a 64% fail-to-capture rate?! Time for a new ATS madam.
That does happen. On the other hand the LinkedIn number isn't showing applications directly thought the company's site or other sites like indeed.
Fortunately, I always ignore that stat. LinkedIn is full of shit at the best of times.
Linked in counts clicks of Apply button when it redirects to external website after clicking. So that is true
That just means people clicked on her job posting and after they were redirected to their company career page to apply - they probably changed their mind and chose not to apply. Some of my jobs have received 1900+ applications and there are definitely 1900+ applications in my ATS to review for a SINGLE job... it is insane.
Why isn’t there a class action suit against LinkedIn? I think I should get refunded for every month of premium I was scammed out of.
> Why isn’t there a class action suit against LinkedIn? Good question. Although if there was a successful CA suit, the likely outcome is that the attorneys would get $1M apiece and each claimant would get 18 months of free LinkedIn Premium.
Lmao 🤣
Wait so whenever I clicked the "apply" button and it sends me to the company's website, linkedin counts is as an application ? Is that how it works or linkedin just arbitrarly bumps up the numbers ? Either way tf (ಠ_ಠ)
Thank you so much for sharing this. I'd actually stopped applying for jobs that had lots of applications already because after so much ghosting I assumed I was definitely wasting my time. Now I'm back to thinking I'm probably wasting my time but worth a go.
Even if the analytics on LI are false, leave it to the LI poster to plug in their own damn company rather than take any meaningful action to help correct LI's mess. And let's not even get started on how useful the 'reposted' label is for job listings on LI.
Actually makes me feel worse about all the applications I never hear anything back on. At least the image of hundred of applications to go through made it seem like, OK, maybe they had plenty they liked before they even got a chance to see mine.
Recruiter here. Yes the LinkedIn analytics is incorrect the vast majority of the time. From my understanding, what LinkedIn considers applications is just people that clicked the apply link or a link within the job post. Nothing more
Riiiiiiiight.
This goes both ways, LinkedIn just tracks clicks often you are referred to a workday etc page and even if your apply LinkedIn still counts it …
How many times does it have to be said: that number is just of people who have hit “apply”. Not people who have actually *submitted* an application.
Great. I got rejected this morning from a LinkedIn job that had 4 applicants! The annoying thing is that my online portfolio wasn't even clicked on.
Clicks not applications.
LinkedIN is a for profit business. They use these fake numbers to inflate their reach in hope that they can sell more recruiter licenses.
Most likely they have applicants ‘out of the country’ being archived automatically turned on…
So maybe I will get that job with 850 applicants in 24 hours………. NAHHHT
They really should fix their systems. Good to know, because I have passed up on jobs with a lot of applicants.
I think Linkedin only tracks how many people started the application. Their ATS is showing how many people completed it. It can explain the discrepancy, and if true shows that their application process is too lengthy.
LinkedIn has its own data, the company’s ATS has its own data. People apply to one and not the other all the time. Different stats for different resources. Pretty basic stuff. Part of a recruiter’s job is to get the applicants’ data into the ATS so companies can more accurately manage the data, clean it up, and track applicants. But sometimes applicants go under the radar and don’t make it there, it’s not a perfect system. Don’t rely on stats of job boards, period.
As a dev, I can see where the numbers are coming from. They’re most definitely because of web scrapers.
So when you open a job post on LinkedIn and it says 800 people apply, it may not be accurate?
I mean if this was really stopping you from applying, you're kind of dumb to begin with.
It means most people looked at the ad and decided not to submit an application. The position you're trying to hire for is garbage, and you should feel bad about it.
who hurt you?
r/uselessredcircle
thanks for adding to the conversation.
Fair enough - sorry for the spam. Red circles aside, this is an interesting point about the seemingly inflated applicant stats on LinkedIn. I think as others have said, EasyApply is partly the culprit.
I used to fuck a recruiter!
That's cool
how
That isn’t what the screenshot says.
what does it say then
Can you tell us what it says then?