LinkedIn is testing a new job-hunting tool that uses a custom large language model to comb through huge quantities of data to help people find prospective roles.
The company believes that artificial intelligence will help users unearth new roles they might have missed in the typical search process.
“The reality is, you don’t find your dream job by checking a set of keywords,” the company’s CEO, Ryan Roslansky, told WIRED in a statement. The new tool, he says, “can help you find relevant jobs you never even knew to search for.”
The move comes as AI continues to change how people use the web. On February 2, OpenAI announced a tool called Deep Research that uses its AI to perform in-depth web research for a user. Google offers a similar tool (with exactly the same name, in fact). Among other things, these tools can be used to automate the process of scouring different websites for job openings.
LinkedIn gave WIRED a preview of the tool, which is currently being tested by a small group of users. Job searchers can enter queries such as “find me a role where I can use marketing skills to help the environment,” or “show jobs in marketing that pay over $100K.”
LinkedIn developed its own large language model, or “LLM”—the kind of AI that powers ChatGPT—to comb through its data and parse search queries. A regular search might only bring up openings based on their job title; the new tool can identify ones based on a deeper analysis of the job description, information about the company and its peers, and posts from across the site. It can also show job seekers what new skills they might need to pursue in order to land a particular role. “We are really using LLMs throughout the entire stack of our search and recommender system, all the way from query understanding to retrieval to ranking,” says Rohan Rajiv, a director of product at LinkedIn.
While LLMs could be a powerful tool for a company like LinkedIn, the use of AI in recruitment has sometimes been problematic because of biases lurking in the models used to vet applicants. Suzi Owen, a LinkedIn spokesperson, says the company has implemented safety measures to guard against potential biases. “This includes addressing criteria that could inadvertently exclude certain candidates, or bias in the algorithms that could impact how qualifications are assessed,” she says.
Wenjing Zhang, a vice president of engineering at LinkedIn, says the company’s new AI stack could be used for more than just job hunting. It can, for instance, produce labor insights by identifying the kinds of skills companies are increasingly using in job descriptions, or that new employees talk about in their posts.
I don’t know if I’d trust a chatbot to offer career advice, but perhaps one that has gorged on LinkedIn’s trove of data could be onto something.
What do you think of LinkedIn’s AI job-hunting tool? Does it seem like a helpful resource or just another potentially problematic AI program to deal with? Share your thoughts in the comments below.