Weird job board news from CareerBuilder, Avito Jobs, and more

As regular readers know, I gather up the most interesting and relevant job board news once a month. But sometimes I see news that just doesn’t fit. It’s weird, unusual or just odd. So here is a sampling of some weird job board news that I suspect you won’t get anywhere else! Enjoy:

• Avito Jobs and astrology: Yes, you read that right! Avito Jobs, a subsidiary of leading Russia-based marketplace horizontal Avito, has launched horoscopes for companies and developed a “human design” system to help companies build better teams. This maybe makes sense, if you believe in astrology. Employers can get an HR astrological forecast based on the date a company was founded. The bot makes recommendations for managing an organization’s structure based on the alignment of the planets at the time of its registration. I’m not sure if there is a sudden upsurge by Russian companies with regard to interest in astrology, or if perhaps there’s something in the water. I don’t forsee this moving into other markets, however.
• CareerBuilder goes ‘back to the future’: CareerBuilder has launched Pay Per Resume, a payment scheme where companies only pay for resumes they use. This highly unoriginal idea dates back to, well, the mid-90s, but for some reason CareerBuilder is bringing it back. The company said the offering will allow companies to eliminate “traditional recruitment fees and license costs” usually incurred in granting recruiters access to candidate pools. This offering is most likely in response to Indeed’s pay-per-application intro, which went quite swimmingly as you may remember. At any rate, Pay Per Resume will provide another way for recruiters to pay CareerBuilder less. Hmm.
• Aggregators get an institute whether they want it or not:  The Institute of Job Aggregators (IJA) has launched to support, grow, and drive change with the leading players across the global job aggregator industry. The new institute has been launched with the support of leading minds in the recruitment and technology industry and will be chaired by former CEO of Jobsite, Mike Wall. I wasn’t aware of an outcry from aggregators for their own industry institute, but admittedly I haven’t been hanging out at conferences lately, either. The institute will offer member access to their leading industry peer group, discounts and benefits, new trends and technologies and will help grow the reputation of the industry and help build brand exposure.  Next up: an institute for ChatGPT-related recruitment products. Right?
• Abortion benefits drive job clicks: Ok, this isn’t actually weird job board news – it’s more in the category of, ‘well, duh!’.  A new research paper from Indeed Hiring Lab and researchers at the University of Southern California, University of Maryland, and IZA Institute of Labor Economics indicates that employers that announced support for reproductive healthcare saw an 8% increase in clicks on their job postings compared with similar jobs at similar employers who did not announce a policy. Not surprisingly, higher job seeker interest was concentrated in Democratic-leaning states and in typically female-dominated jobs in states where abortion became illegal after Dobbs. Interesting data – I will be curious to see if the increase is sustained over time.

So, there you go – who says the job board industry is completely boring? You know where to go to get your weird job board news! Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to check my horoscope and see how to restructure JobBoardDoctor!

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