Intervention (Hidden)
Using the rich data obtained from Pôle emploi, Bob Emploi seeks to help job seekers find a position through four different means.
First, Bob Emploi gives personalized advice based on user profile. When creating a profile on Bob Emploi, each user is asked to fill in their socio-demographic characteristics (gender, age, level of education, and municipality of residency), their desired occupation, and their target geographic area and salary. Based on this information, and leveraging the labor market information provided by Pôle emploi, the website presents the user with a diagnosis of employability in the form of a numerical score based on the labor demand for the target job, the competition for these jobs, and the quality of the match between the user’s profile and the job requirements. The idea underlying this feature, which is supported by a growing literature, is that job seekers tend to have inaccurate beliefs about the situation of the labor market and to be overoptimistic about their return to employment, leading to suboptimal search strategy. The diagnosis of employability was expected to lead job seekers to update their beliefs about their chances to find a job and to adjust their search accordingly.
In addition to the employability diagnosis, the website gives users recommendations to undertake some actions, ranked by order of importance. For instance, Bob Emploi's algorithm may advise users targeting a tight market to explore related careers with higher demand. If the data indicate that the market for that occupation is less tight in neighboring municipalities, users may be advised to widen the geographic perimeter of their search.
To customize its recommendations, Bob Emploi also asks users to indicate how many job opportunities they identified over the past weeks, how many applications they sent, and how many interviews and job offers they received. The website uses the ratio between any two of these indicators to customize pieces of advice focusing on steps to overcome the most important obstacles to finding a job. For example, if the number of interviews received by a user is disproportionately low relative to their number of applications, Bob Emploi may advise them to edit their résumé or to improve other parts of their application file.
Second, Bob Emploi provides general advice, such as how to behave in a job interview. Recommendations are frequently completed by referral to external resources, most often also online. Both the general and personalized advice provided by the website may help job seekers overcome informational barriers and increase their chances to find a job.
Third, beyond information provision, Bob Emploi also provides step-by-step planning assistance to its users. The goal of these action plans is to help job seekers organize their job search efficiently and prioritize the tasks they need to complete. Encouraging individuals to follow such plans has proven effective in many contexts, including job search.
Fourth, Bob Emploi sends regular reminders and messages of encouragement to job seekers as a motivation technique. Users can control how often they receive these emails. This feature is motivated by recent research in behavioral economics showing that present biased time preferences and biased beliefs can otherwise lead job seekers to procrastinate their search effort. In addition, the website also generally uses encouraging language and an optimistic tone, emphasizing the strengths of each job seeker’s profile. The format of the interface is simple and inviting, in contrast with the often austere and complex appearances of other administrative resources. These features may be particularly relevant given the decline in search effort and motivation over the unemployment spell and the increase in sadness documented by previous work.