An Employment Match: Are Dating Apps the New Recruiting Device?

The recent Wall Street Journal piece about the use of online dating apps for employment networking explored what happens when people in the relationship marketplace leverage dating apps for career development. It makes sense if you think about it because employment relationships are at their core personal relationships.  While the Journal’s piece focused on the perceived awkwardness (by some) of using a dating app for networking, it also raised some interesting points about the place dating apps might have as an employment recruiting device.

In the online dating realm, there are no real legal constraints on investigatory mate selection.  People self-select the type of dating app based upon their personal criteria which includes an increasingly large number of apps that allow people-sorting by age, religion, gender and even occupation (for those of you unfamiliar with Farmers Only).  And, unlike the highly regulated employment arena, anything goes for those seeking potential mates online. Do you want to meet a 6 foot tall vegan atheist between the ages of 34 and 46? Your imagination is the only constraint. A dating app truly is an ideal mechanism for the discerning relationship hunter.

The employment relationship, on the other hand, while equally significant to many people, is much harder to recruit for, curate, and predict a successful outcome. Employers are limited in what they can and cannot ask of job applicants, and what kind of information they can include in online advertisements and job postings. An ideal employment “match” is much harder to make given legal limitations which constrain inquiries into many categories – obvious ones like age, gender, religion and race – and lesser known ones (at least in some jurisdictions) such as credit history, criminal convictions, and even the fact that someone is or was unemployed. In fact, prospective employers should only ask job applicants questions that are strictly related to the person's ability to do the advertised job, such as relevant job experience, educational background, and specialized training or academic degrees. And yet – here is where the risk plays out – based on the very thinnest of information (most of which the employer hopes is accurate) a relationship is created that, while not permanent, is very heavily regulated.

This is where the mechanisms used for dating and recruiting really diverge. A dating relationship is often a precursor to marriage. But there is no similar tool for an employment relationship, unless you count probationary employment periods, which are of limited value and often riddled with inconsistency. Even though the employment relationship typically requires dozens of forms to initiate, accompanying government reporting, and (we hope) careful management, it is legally impossible to make an employment match in the same way one might enter into a dating relationship. But once the employment relationship is established, the law intervenes in a pretty dramatic way. Break-ups are not easy.

This brings us back to the use of online dating for career networking. There is nothing inherently wrong with a motivation-neutral network-widening device. From a generational perspective, many individuals view the world as a single marketplace, with no lines between personal and business. Even carefully curated online dating programs can't predict a successful personal relationship, let alone marriage, any more than an online job applicant will turn into a successful, long-term employee with a robust career path. With that said, employers should resist the temptation to cast a wider recruiting net into the realm of online dating apps because it will be all too easy to face legal claims when that net is cast in a legally inartful manner.  In other words, employers should stick to the traditional recruiting lanes for now and resist the temptation to swipe right to hire.