Survey Results: Would You Pay $5 to Apply for a Job?
Last week, I asked the question above in a short article, which was read thousands of times.
I mentioned the problems that (1) job seekers’ job applications often get completely ignored, while (2) recruiters are overwhelmed by huge volumes of completely unqualified applicants.
I suggested the idea that job seekers might pay $5 to apply for each job.
At least half the money would go to charity, and NONE of the money would go to the recruiter or company.
The upshot would be much fewer unqualified applicants, in exchange for a guaranteed response to every applicant (no “black hole”). It’s not perfect, but neither is the status quo.
A few people seemed genuinely outraged by the idea. While I hadn’t heard of paying to apply for a job before, colleges charge their applicants an average of over $37 (and applicants are hoping to become the college’s customer!).
Sixty people responded to the survey, or left definitively “yes” or “no” comments. As the chart above shows, 40% were yes, 53% were no, and the remaining 7% were either mixed or neutral.
Reader comments
Reader comments are included below, grouped by how they voted, with personally identifying information removed.
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‘Mixed or Neutral’ comments:
Should be refunded to nominally qualified applicants; hard to say from a resume who will make it but can reasonably separate folks into comically underqualified and not only the timewasters ought to be fined.
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I like the spirit of this, making it (a little) more painful for applicants and recruiters may help solve this. However I feel the platform or idea could be abused. How am I sure the job postings there are legit and from real companies?
The incentive from the ‘platform’ who owns or facilitates this is to have as many job postings as possible. How with that incentive I can be sure the platform is allowing only ‘real’ jobs to be posted, or that they are at least high quality?
How about charging the Recruiter the same $2.5? So, seeker and recruiter both pay $2.5 when they apply/get an application (obviously, the recruiter can set a cap — let’s say 100 applications)
/// I think this has to be more transparent than ‘some charity’. Also, there is no incentive for the recruiter to put up a quality job posting (aside from hiring a good candidate), but there are recruiting “farms” who will just put anything on the web. The incentive here is for the platform to have as many job postings as possible.
I think a better approach may be charging both the seeker and recruiter the $2.5 fare (recruiters can set a cap, and does not have to be 50/50… could be seeker $2, recruiter $10). But there needs to be painful and incentives on both sides.
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I’d be more amenable to this if all $5 went to a charity of my choice (and if I’m the one credited for the donation). I’d be even more amenable to this if I could pay the $5 by some other means (e.g. by volunteering for a charity, or perhaps by donating blood).
/// I’ll pay the $5 if I’m paid a living wage for my time spent in the interview process.
Also, I find it amusingly disturbing that the response to such a scheme giving wealthier candidates a disproportionate advantage is “lol tough luck bud”.
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I think maybe it should be “pay $5 and you will get a guaranteed response, or don’t pay $5 and you can still apply but there’s no guarantee you’ll get a response”. That way I’ll pay to be able to hear from the people I know I want feedback from on a case by case basis.
Hell, i might be willing to pay upwards of $20 for a company I really cared about if I was guaranteed detailed, honest feedback. [someone else commented on this “Freemium applications. That feels a tad surreal.” — not enough certainty to count them as a yes or no vote]
‘YES’ comments:
I would pay if it would speed up the recruitment process, as I hate not having an answer to my applications. The ‘We will contact you within 7 working days’ or ‘If you haven’t heard from us in 14 days consider your application unsuccessful’ automated responses have to end.
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“Also, if I could be guaranteed completely honest and helpful feedback on any rejection.
Not just “”not the right experience””, but “”we need someone who has built a product with xyz framework””, or “”looking for someone who has had a bigger leadership role before””.”
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“Yes if I get a guaranteed and timely response from a human with real feedback. Not just a yes/no as described.
I don’t care about donating to charity when I’m applying to jobs.
I am already basically already paying with my time and sanity.”
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“Yes, I would pay the fee. Although I’m surprised that recruiters see high volume. Are they?
Similarly, *every* e-mail you send, anywhere, should cost 1 cent. This will immediately cut down e-mail spam levels by a factor 100.”
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Will filter all those people sending unrelated resumès. It has to be compensated by the company, maybe not as the 50 bucks gift card, but some other way, if not, I could set a fake company only to get lots of $5 applicants
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It would be great to weed out the chaff. As a recruiter — I’d be willing to match the submitter’s $5 for charity, simply to save time myself.
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You’d have to find appropriate pricing, but broadly this is a good idea. Dynamic pricing may be an interesting twist to help w/ rate limiting / self-selection. There would be a “target” number of applications and the price candidates pay would go up or down based on how many people apply.
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Make it based off of expected salary for the position, instead of “$5 to apply”, it should be some [very tiny] fraction of the annualized pay.
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Hurts so bad never getting any response at all.
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“$5 should ensure that I get a reply. Automated reply is like no-reply to me though.
If $5 can make sure the reply does come back, I will be happy to pay it.”
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Money goes to charity (in the name of applicant, not employer) benefits all. It slows the tide of unqualified applications, it isn’t such an expensive requirement that requires an applicant to go into debt to get a job and the applicant can feel good that even if they didn’t get the job, they helped a charity organization (their time and money wasn’t wasted).
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At first, from the non-HR perspective I was appalled, but it is true that it would cut down on applications from non-qualified candidates. I do see the argument that it is elitist, but an experiment worth trying. Perhaps the candidate can direct the funds themselves to a charity and receive the tax credit for it.
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“Thins out spam and guarantees a response (anything out of the block hole of HR would be great)
Also, no cover letters please.”
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“I don’t think it’s a good idea in all cases, as I wouldn’t want to pay $5 while sending a resume for all 50+ places that might be required sometimes to get a job (especially if I wasn’t in tech, although I am), but for some high quality places or places that seem like great fits I wouldn’t mind spending ~$50 for those 10 applications. I’ve spent $55 before parking for a single job interview in a major city that I didn’t end up getting (which was harsh at the time, I didn’t really have that money), but it would have been for a really good opportunity.
If it’s for a firm that really doesn’t interest me or do interesting things but might be able to get me if they pay enough, they probably aren’t going to benefit from requiring $5 per application. But they’re probably not getting a ton of applications to begin with.”
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“Helping to cut down on applications who are not seriously interested in a position. I have been on the hiring side and the overwhelming number of resumes received that are not even remotely a fit for the job is frustrating.
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I’d support this sort of proposal but would rather 100% of the money go to a charity.”
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If this would speed up the hiring process, then I am all for it.
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i am already employed
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I am a job seeker and ‘blackhole’ applications really annoy me, no one even replies with ‘thanks, no thanks’. As a job seeker I want a faster turn around with the recruitment process, if I don’t get an interview let me know asap, so I can move on.
‘NO’ comments:
“Before as an employee, I already hated job hunting processes and I had a lot of options. While the $5 is a huge amount it’s a big red flag.
Now as an employer, the last thing I want to do is drive off the best and select for those willing to pay to submit a resume”
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“A job offer is mutually beneficial to both parties, and this bizarrely presumes that the candidate is somehow compensating for being the “”Beneficiary”” of the transaction.
As a candidate, I’d be offended that an employer wants money to participate in a process that is in their benefit. It starts off the employment relationship on the wrong foot, with the candidate having to pay for the “”privilege”” of consideration.
As an employer, I’d hate to miss out on a good candidate that may be offput by a fee (as I would be), or who is already at a financial disadvantage. There is already a lack of good candidates and adding friction to the process is the opposite of what needs to happen.
Everyone has an optimal job position that takes advantage of their unique skills, and every employer would love to fill their positions with prime candidates — the challenge is finding this match, and a $5 fee does nothing to help this.”
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“If you’re really in need for a new job, you will write a whole lot of application, which would get quite costly — but chances are, you don’t have too much money, otherwise you wouldn’t write tons of applications in the first place.
Also, replying is part of HR’s job, so they already get paid to do that.”
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Jobseekers are, by definition, poor, you asshat. You’re not tailoring the product to the market at all.
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There are more people applying for jobs because there are more people desparate for work. This does not solve the problem, it merely pushes those with less disposable income (and $5 for two automated emails is money thrown away if you’re not getting the job) out of the equation. $5 might be a cup of coffee for some people, but for others that’s a family’s evening meal.
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Job seeking is a tiring activity with a lot of bullshit from recruiters and even the companies you apply to… all until you find that one match that satisfies your desires. IMO you should be paid to apply for jobs… not the other way around. You are the most disadvantaged part of this entire deal.
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Absolutely not. That would severely hinder my abilities to apply for a large amount of jobs. The promise of a response does not help me in the slightest, since they can just write to say that they rejected my application, and then I’m out $5.
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Will job seekers really hate themselves that much to pay $5 to get some unpaid, intern-written, rejection letter? Even worse, will they start thinking this is normal? Eugene Debs is rolling in his grave.
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You are asking the job seeker to solve a problem for the recruiter.
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resumes are already sorted by an algorithm. $5 is not going to float it to the top. This is a seriously bad, bad, misguided idea.
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“Simple economics. It provides a perverse incentive whereby companies are directly rewarded for keeping positions open and receiving new applicants over actually hiring people.
Think about it — as long as it takes <15 minutes (ballpark) for the person receiving resumes to trash it for one reason or another, the company is making money from this. So why wouldn’t the company simply keep the job application open?
If there was a guaranteed way to see how many applicants had applied and been rejected? Maybe. But there is no way to do so. Or rather, any way to do so could be easily worked around (e.g. constantly moving to a new job ad, etc.)
As such, me being the sucker for punishment that I am, I will never apply for a job that requires me paying them to apply for. Just doing my part to keep the Nash equilibrium in the right spot.”
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“If I have to bribe my way into an interview, then something is *seriously* fucked up.
I also just *love* how the article responds to the issue of such a scheme being biased toward wealthier applicants with “”lol tough luck bud””.”
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The problem is that there is a lot of noise in regards to people looking for workers and people looking for jobs. Money is simply being used here to weed out specific candidates, however, its going to weed out candidates who are generally low income, and also people people like me, who just will refuse on principle. Low income people don’t need another obstacle to find a job, which is exactly what i think this would do.
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Taxing job seekers to make the HR recruiters job easier strikes me as very short sighted. Given how hard it can be to find a job today, where you might get rejected for tens of jobs you are technically qualified for. This could potentially cost some people hundreds of dollars in order to find a job. Hundreds of dollars that should go to other things than lazy HR Recruiters.
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Willingness to pay $5 doesn’t signal quality of applicant, so companies have no incentive to treat you better for paying $5. As a result $5 doesn’t actually get you any improved application chances as a result.
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Paying to apply for a job is a giant red flag. Scams prey on the desperate, charging say $200 to “work from home and make big money. The only way I would consider investing money into a new venture is if I have a business interest in the profits, not for an employment agreement.
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“the low-cost solution as a job Seeker is to just apply to more jobs. For every 10 applications I send out I will likely get at least one response. Because I know this, I have streamlined my application strategy. For every one company that I spend time on I will apply to five companies that I spend as little time as possible on.
I could see this being a much more interesting service, as an anonymous waystation between the applicant and the hiring company. Guarantee real detailed human feedback from the company without divulging the company’s name to the applicant. Additionally this would give an applicant the opportunity to give advice about the companies interview practices.”
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“* Most job seekers don’t have $5 to spend.
* Why should I trust the employer to deliver on those promises, either to respond or to donate to charity? And even if they responded, what keeps them from giving as useless an answer as they already do (“”not a good fit””)?
* My willingness to pay has nothing to do with my actual suitability to the position. The employer still has to weed through the chaff; paid chaff is still chaff. And what about the ideal candidate who wouldn’t deign to pay? Then they’re missing out.
* If an employer wants a gatekeeper, they can pay a recruiter.”
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“I already pay, usually, north of half a kilobuck in lost wages to interview, so the fiver doesn’t matter except as a signal.
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That said, I would never apply for a job that asked for cash up front, just because it is a signal that it operates like a mlm or other sales related thing, and that isn’t something I have to tolerate.”
“The problem is some people give good feedback, other people don’t.
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Even if you pay the $5, it doesn’t mean the person giving you feedback is any good at it.
Made-up feedback is worse than no feedback. /// Hahaha.
I think you would be selecting the exactly wrong applicant. Why would one pay for a chance to make you money?
Anyone you want to hire probably has enough other places where application is free.
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If anything, you should be paying people for the time they spend interviewing. That would 1) make sure you are incentivized to only bring in people who have a good chance, 2) give you a chance to woo great people who might already be happy where they are.”
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“Absolutely NOT.
A better question is whether companies would pay for the time a candidate spends to interview (e.g. an onsite interview takes a whole day requiring the candidate to use up a PTO) or as restitution for the pain caused to the candidate of having to talk to the companies’ recruiters before getting to a hiring manager.”
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“The idea is interesting and there are, in fact, many firms I’d gladly pay $20 — $50 for an audience with (often in the form of buying someone lunch to network) but there’s far too much potential for fraud and abuse here.
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I won’t pay someone $5 to add my resume to their database.
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$100 for an introduction to a highly qualified prospect for my services is actually a bargain (an obscene, under priced one at that) in the B2B sales arena….
The problem, of course, is it can be hard to tell the difference between the two in advance….
And nobody will sue over $5 (so limited options to control fraud)
Finally, in the company’s defense, you need a way to screen out completely unqualified applicants…”
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No. presumably they are hiring because they NEED my services. When somebody needs something from you, they pay you, not the other way around.
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“Even if you could guarantee accurate feedback from the employer (which you likely can’t, since companies avoid giving it to avoid things like potential lawsuits), it’d just feel counterproductive to pay money on the off chance I’d get a job afterwards.
It’d also be rather costly (especially if you’re not making money as it is) and would screw things up by taking away the mass submitting applications thing. I mean, at the end of the day, job hunting is a numbers game. It’s not all about having the first person through the door with the right skillset hired on the spot.”
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“Not the worst idea, but if i want to donate $2.50 to a charity (and who picks the charity?) I’ll just do it myself.
The biggest downside I see here is that we already have a huge problem with recruiting agencies blasting job ads all over the place just to collect resumes. Robert Half, for example. Do they ever actually get back to anyone? Seems like all they do is collect resumes. Why would I pay to apply to something like that?
I think that companies should be responding to applicants no matter what. It’s just the right thing to do.”
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No way Jose. You have to ask how we’ve come to a state where people are bold enough to make suggestions like this and actually expect a level of acceptance. By adding a potential cost of $100s to the average job search (especially for those just starting out in their field) would certainly good for somebody, but certainly not good for the job seeker, society or anyone in a temporary financial rut. i.e. even more distribution of wealth to the wealthy.
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No. Would you pay me $5 per unsolicited recruiting email/message you send?
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A longer, thoughtful response is easier to read here: https://medium.com/@mrkevinchavez/nope-point-by-point-i-have-a-few-comments-a19d6ed902b4#.7buce0h5t
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“I’d be more amenable to this if all $5 went to a charity of my choice (and if I’m the one credited for the donation). I’d be even more amenable to this if I could pay the $5 by some other means (e.g. by volunteering for a charity, or perhaps by donating blood).
/// I’ll pay the $5 if I’m paid a living wage for my time spent in the interview process.
Also, I find it amusingly disturbing that the response to such a scheme giving wealthier candidates a disproportionate advantage is “lol tough luck bud.”
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“I think maybe it should be “pay $5 and you will get a guaranteed response, or don’t pay $5 and you can still apply but there’s no guarantee you’ll get a response”. That way I’ll pay to be able to hear from the people I know I want feedback from on a case by case basis.
Hell, i might be willing to pay upwards of $20 for a company I really cared about if I was guaranteed detailed, honest feedback. [someone else commented on this “Freemium applications. That feels a tad surreal.” — not enough certainty to count them as a yes or no vote]”
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