Anonymity is all the rage. With anonymous messaging services like Secret and pseudo-anonymous dating services like Tinder, it makes sense that there would be anonymous job search sites. I mean, who wants their employer to know they're spending time trying to find somewhere else to run?
But there's a twist in play with the anonymous job sites popping up: job seekers don't have to be actively hunting to benefit. With these sites hiring managers are the ones stalking and staking out potential new hires and making the first move. While most are very new and very small, industry watchers believe they'll take deep root and prove to be a win for job seekers and companies seeking specific talent and skills.
"At the moment, sites like Poachable are small and have relatively few job openings because they are still startups. They focus almost exclusively on hard to fill IT positions," Cheryl Palmer, a certified career coach and owner of Call to Career, told Tech Times.
"However, I believe that such sites will grow in popularity in the next few years because they meet a need. The job market is now producing more jobs, which puts job seekers in a much more enviable position than they have been in the last six or seven years. That means that employers will be seeking out job seekers, particularly those who have in-demand skill sets and are currently working in their fields," she says.
Most of the sites appear tailored to employers who are looking for niche talent, including specific engineering jobs in the IT sector. The sites, at this point, offer limited features and job hunter functionality but as Palmer notes, that's likely to change as such hiring approaches grab greater attention.
One site is called Poachable. It was founded by an ex-Googler and allows users to say "yes," "maybe," or "no," to job positions the website presents as a possible employment opportunity. The matching process works through a questionnaire focused on the interests of the user and lifestyle aspects such as relocation interest. Candidates remain completely anonymous until they and a prospective employer express mutual interest.
"Sites like Poachable act like a dating service for job seekers and employers," says Palmer, and they hit a job-hunting segment that is often very hard for recruiters and hiring managers to reach -- the passive job seeker.
"Employers sometimes don't know exactly who to target to fill their openings, and job seekers don't know where to find positions that would be tempting enough to make them leave the jobs that they have," she notes.
