Potential Solution to the Job Search Problem

Welcome back to another episode of the Alli from corporate podcast. I'm your host, Ali, and I have my co host Rico, who's also my husband. Hello.

What's up, everybody?

What's up, honey?

How you doing?

You guys know this podcast is all about people who want to move up in the corporate game, people who want to learn lessons that we've learned or that our guests have learned, learn about different career paths, just how to grow in general and working in business. You're in the right place. This is the podcast for you. Um, today is going to be a fun episode because, Rico, I have an idea that I think could solve a huge problem in the hiring game. Do you want to hear what it is?

Let's hear it.

So first, the problem. Have you heard that there's a lot of people applying to jobs and a lot of them are not qualified for the job?

Yes, heard that.

I've heard that too. I mean, I have recruiter friends and career coaches who say that they're seeing a thousand applications and zero are qualified for the role, and they have to re upload the job posting to get more applicants. So my idea, my crazy little idea is what if you had to pay a dollar for every job application you submitted?

I do like it if the money goes to the right people or charity. So it'd be great if the company wouldn't get that because then they're just gonna spam a bunch of job posting, and that'd be a business in itself.

Interesting idea.

But if the company doesn't get any money and the website's not really making any money, but the money goes, that dollar goes to a charity of your choosing, then that would make it, like, morally pretty sweet. And you can say for every dollar, it will go to the homeless shelter, pet friend, you know, like pets and friends or whatever. All these charities are out there.

That is a great idea. I didn't think of. Yeah, who's going to get the money? Because we know as much as anybody that if you want to know where corruption goes, follow the. Follow the dollar bills. But do you think so? It's the same. Okay, they donated to Cherry. Do you think this would make people think twice about the spray and pray method? Which is, oh, my gosh, I'm looking for a job. I'm so desperate for work, I would take the first offer that comes, and I'm going to apply for every single job I can find.

A hundred percent. That would actually eliminate most of that because you got to be qualified. Read through it before you submit it because you don't want to waste money, but if you do waste money, it goes to charities, then it'd be pretty damn sweet.

I agree. Who doesn't like donating a dollar to charity? And in my experience with what, what's working for people that are actually getting jobs in this crazy job market, we' is having really high quality, thoughtful, detailed, robust applications and not just applying with the same resume to every job, but really like applying for a job, then networking with the people who might interview you, submitting a project portfolio for that job, posting on LinkedIn about what makes you qualified for roles like that. Like that's what I'm seeing is working. So I feel like it would not only help recruiters because they would have a smaller pile of resumes to go through, but it would also help job seekers because it's not a numbers game. It's. It's a high quality application game, not high quantity.

Yeah, exactly right. Very interesting concept.

You know, have you ever heard of anybody doing this, charging money for a job application?

No, because my problem that I would see is that people just go through the website and apply on the website.

No, that's where you charge.

No. Oh, you mean you would have the company listing and then you charge a dollar at checkout and that will go to charity?

Yeah. What were you thinking? That LinkedIn would do this?

Yeah, that LinkedIn would do it, but that doesn't work that great, so. But I like that idea where the company would charge, you know.

Yeah. I mean, it might help this applicant tracking system issue too, where ATS systems, you know, those like, software tools that screen resumes to make sure that you're kind of closely matching the job description. And if you're not, it just sends you an auto rejection email. I think sometimes companies fine tune those ATS screens a little too much and they filter out candidates that would be qualified.

Yeah, yeah, I. But then when the money goes to the company, they might not donate it, you know, so there needs to be a third partner, third party. It's almost like you need an API that actually will take the money so the company doesn't get, doesn't touch the money and then it goes directly to charity. You know, it needs to be like a third party.

Like escrow.

Yeah, just like where you just do the, where you just paid a dollar and it goes to charity.

What if you got the dollar back if the company rejected you later on?

No, because then you can. I. No, that's, that's not going to work because then you just send it Anyways, then you have the same problem.

Or what if it gave you the dollar back if you got the job? That's silly, though. Who needs a dollar?

Yeah. Or no, this dollar right now. 25 cent. It could be 25 cent. It's just. So you don't just click the easy apply on LinkedIn and then in matter of like 10 minutes, I get like 5,000 applications, you know?

Yeah. I want to know anybody who's watching this on YouTube or listening. Have you ever been successful in clicking Easy Apply and getting that job? Like, that is the most minimal amount of effort I have ever seen for applying for jobs, and I'm pretty sure that that doesn't work.

I, you know, I'm interested because they have it. So there must have been some sort of success, right?

Not necessarily. You. You have a lot of faith in product development teams. No, not necessarily. No.

But let me say it this way. There needs to be a feedback loop that said that this is a good idea and there had to be some kind of thing that we need this. Let's implement this. So there had to be the conversation and implementation, you know.

True. Okay. Yeah. And I've worked with a lot of people at LinkedIn. They seem like a very organized group of people. The nano course people, you know, the LinkedIn learning people. Like, they're very organized. You know what I also like, And I'm getting on a little bit of a tangent right now, but you know what I also like about LinkedIn employees that I've done deals with? They take PTO all the time. Every other email I send to somebody, a contact at LinkedIn, they're like, it's like an automatic message. I'm on PTO till the. Till the 23rd. Please contact. Blah, blah, blah. I love that for them. They all seem very calm. Nobody's stressed, nobody's in a bad mood. So little sidebar.

Microsoft. Right?

Microsoft. What about Microsoft?

They own the company. They own LinkedIn.

That's right.

They own. So it's kind of Microsoft philosophy governing LinkedIn. Right.

What do you know about Microsoft philosophy?

That they take PTO very seriously.

Yeah. And they don't like remote workers because they can't advance in the company if you're a remote worker there.

I thought it was Dell.

Oh, you're right, it is Dell.

I thought.

Okay, I'm getting confused, but we're also getting off topic here. Okay, so you know who, I would love to hear their opinion on this dollar for a resume idea? Our guest speaker this week in the community. Yes, Ellie. Ellie. Hochman. She's so cool. So she is a. I believe she's a part time recruiter. She's also one of my favorite career coaches. I love her style. And she is going to speak in our private communities guest speaker spot this week, which anybody is welcome to join for free to get a little taste of our private community. Send me a DM on any platform and I'll send you the Zoom link. It's 2 to 3pm Every Thursday we have a different guest. This week is job search week. And so we are having Ellie Hochman come and talk to us about what recruiters really look for. You look distracted. What are you looking at?

I was thinking about sending her a dm, telling her, hey, what do you think about this idea?

You know, let's bring it on her. Come on. I want to see her gut reaction.

Okay.

So is that not fair? Some people don't appreciate that.

No, I think you can ask her. You like, what if we had a symbolic price? You know, it could be 25 cent or something. But I just, I just spaced out and thought, should I shoot her DM or not? Be like, yo, what do you think?

You look like you were drifting off in space thinking about your YouTube analytics.

Yeah, that's been going. I see the video. The views count. That was like 101. 102.

By the way, I want to congratulate you just publicly. You are killing it on YouTube.

Thanks.

Your channel is about what exactly?

So in my header it says job market and finance.

Okay, but what's it really about?

Whatever I feel like talking about.

And I love your style. Like you've been getting thousands of views on your videos and you make one every day. You're so diligent about it. And you just got a new camera. Do you have it around? You can hold it up?

No, I don't have it. It's being charged. But it's a dji.

What did you tell us about your style of filming? And we're getting wildly off topic, but whatever. It's my podcast. I can do what I want. Tell me about what camera you just got and then like your style of.

Filming as I used to. DJI Osmo 3. It's a really cool camera. Yeah. And so I just read about it and, you know, I need to be out and about walking every day. You know, everybody should be walking every day. So I just come up with some topic that people ask me questions and I just walk and talk about what I think and I start conversations with other people and if I can influence 10 people, and they can influence 10 people. It's like a whole network of a bunch of influence people that were. That are gonna better their finances, that are gonna spend money in the community, in their local community. That's what I'm like, number one thing I want people to take away is, like, don't give money to big corporations. You know, like, don't go to Starbucks when you're not on a road trip. Go to your local coffee shop if you have one nearby to support them. You know, they'll be super appreciative.

I love that. And I. While you were talking, I was thinking, like, okay, I'm gonna ask him next. Like, what is one piece of advice, piece of unsolicited advice you want to give people, but you just gave it.

So, yeah, keep the money board game. From down the road, there was, like, this little mom and pop shop, and it's like. And I looked at the price. You know, I'm always curious, you know, the markup on it, just because, you know, like, I love doing YouTube videos. So I'm like, you know what. What's the price difference? And on Amazon, you can get them for 29. And we bought it for 49.

I'm happy to give that guy.

Yes.

He was such a cool business owner. There were people playing games in his game store. He knew every game. We told him what we were looking for. He recommended us. Wingspan. If anybody listening has played that, let me know how you like it. We love it. It's fun. Yeah.

So that's like, what I'm talking about, you know, like, as us. As business owners, you know, like what we look out for when we had to do layoffs, when we had to, you know, entrepreneurship and whatnot.

Yeah.

So for most people, that's not in their. You know, they're not thinking about it. They're just like, oh, my gosh, I'm being let go. But there's a bigger overarched theme that they need to take into consideration.

Yeah. Your small communities. Economics. Yeah. I really like your channel because you. You described it one way to me as living the American dream. The Swiss way.

Pretty much. Pretty much.

That's. And I love when I met you. Like, I feel like I had such a toxic relationship with money and debt, and you helped me. You know, Switzerland is, like, notorious for being neutral and good at finance. You helped me be both of those things after we got married, and you helped me see money more as, like, a tool rather than a good thing or a bad thing. And you Also helped me see how people can use debt for good.

Yeah.

To make money. So I love your channel. I watch your videos.

I know you do. You comment on. I appreciate that.

Sometimes I comment and I'm like, oh, are you single?

Yeah, yeah. No, it's, you know, like I'm all about, like, I tell people on YouTube to, you know, to shop in their local communities, you know, and I feel like if we're circling back to that, you know, to that $1 resume, that money should go back into your community. You know, it shouldn't go towards a bigger corporation. It should go to smaller business owners, you know, or franchisee people that just want to, want to experience American dream or are trying to make it. And I feel like if we keep shopping at Amazon and, you know, we all do it, it's so convenient, you know, I feel like we're robbing these small business owners. We're stealing money out of our community. And then Amazon takes that money, takes a percentage and spends it in a way that you and I might not be okay with. You know, like spends it on ads, political campaigns, lobbying. Yeah.

I have a question. So hang on a minute. Couldn't somebody who's doing drop shipping on Amazon, couldn't they be considered a small business in your community?

Yes, they, they could. But when you look at who's selling on Amazon, it's mostly not how or how. Let me ask you this. How many people do you know that. That success that have like that, like consistently make money from it?

Just Ross. Roz is the only one. She's killing it.

Right?

Yeah. Roz, if you're listening, we're proud of you. I don't know anybody else who's successful doing it.

Yeah, but besides, you know, besides her, she just started one item and I'm, and I'm not talking about just like one item. There's like these big shops on that, like price. You know, the price. You know, they, they compete with the price. And even Ross told me, like, there's other things on there. You know, there's other competitors that can offer it at a lower price. It's just a different rebranding and that's a huge corporation that does it.

Okay? So those are not people in our community that we should be supporting. Unless it is a friend that you know who's got an Amazon shop.

Yeah, yeah. But most people, you know, like, if you go to the guy that has the store, you know, where we bought the game from, he's. If you buy something from his employees, he has, you know, he's paying taxes on the store. You know, he has employment, payroll taxes and everything. So, you know, it's going back. The money's going back into our own pockets.

Yeah, I want to give him a shout out. I'm. I'm looking him up right now. I want to give him a shout out on this podcast because I really did like his. His store, and I'm trying to find the name of it, and it is Shall We Play in Las Vegas?

Yeah.

So it's on Norman Rockwell Lane in Las Vegas called. It's a game store called Shall We Play the Games and More Store. Super cool business. If you're in Vegas, or if you're coming to Vegas and you don't just want to drink your face off for the weekend, consider stopping at that guy's shop, buying a game, and having fun with your friends at your Airbnb.

Cool. Okay, number one.

For anybody listening and watching, this is basically what Ryoko and I conversations are like every day. We're. I kind of forgot we're recording, actually.

Number one out of ten, you're doing so good. I thought, number one, that I was, like, freaking out a little bit, you.

Know, and I love it. So go check out Rico on YouTube if you're into finance and job market stuff, and if you're not, don't check them out, because we don't want to mess with the algorithm. We've learned that YouTube is very good at picking who watches your videos. So let. Let's end this party. I got some Fakasha bread to put in the oven.

Sweet. Yeah, this is a great episode. Let me know what you think.

All right, everybody, we'll catch you next time.

Bye.