By Richard Eib, Jersey Hired
There is a difference between giving job seekers a new tool and deciding that the tool should become the way they search for work.
LinkedIn appears to have crossed that line.
LinkedIn's AI-powered job search allows people to describe the type of position they want conversationally rather than relying on traditional job titles, keywords and filters. On the surface, there is plenty to like about the idea.
A candidate could search for something along the lines of "a marketing position in New Jersey where I can work for a growing healthcare company" rather than repeatedly adjusting keywords, locations, industries and other filters. LinkedIn says the technology interprets the person's intent and matches that against millions of job descriptions, potentially uncovering opportunities the candidate might otherwise have missed.
If that were simply another option available to job seekers, I would have very little problem with it.
The problem is that LinkedIn now says its AI-powered job search is available to members worldwide and that it is gradually retiring its classic job search beginning in September 2026. In other words, this isn't simply an experiment sitting alongside the traditional search experience. LinkedIn is moving toward making AI the intermediary between millions of people looking for work and millions of jobs they might want to find.
After 25 years working in recruitment, that concerns me.
Not because I believe AI has no place in recruitment. It absolutely does. Used correctly, artificial intelligence can help recruiters work through information, help candidates research employers, identify transferable skills, improve job descriptions and make parts of an incredibly inefficient hiring process easier.
But AI should help people make decisions. It should not quietly start making those decisions for them.
Job Search Used to Be Something You Controlled
Traditional job-board search isn't particularly glamorous, but it has one enormous advantage: the job seeker controls the search.
If you want to see every accounting job within 25 miles of Princeton, you search for accounting jobs within 25 miles of Princeton. If you want to look for HR Manager, HR Business Partner and People Operations positions separately, you can do exactly that. You decide the terminology, you decide the geography, you decide which filters matter and, crucially, you decide which results are worth investigating.
AI-powered search changes that relationship.
LinkedIn describes its system as one that understands the meaning behind a person's request rather than depending on exact keywords and filters. That can certainly produce useful discoveries, particularly when someone doesn't know the precise job title they should be searching for. However, it also means another layer of interpretation is being inserted between the candidate and the available jobs.
The candidate isn't merely asking, "What jobs contain these criteria?"
They are increasingly asking an algorithm, "What jobs do you think I mean?"
Those are not the same thing.
Discovery Is Wonderful. Losing Control Isn't.
LinkedIn makes a reasonable argument for AI search. The company says more than half of job candidates report missing opportunities because they don't know which filters or job titles to use. A more conversational search could therefore help someone discover a career path or job title they had never considered.
I can see enormous value in that.
Imagine someone who has spent ten years in hospitality management and wants to move into another industry. They might have exceptional experience managing people, budgets, vendors, customer relationships and complex operations, but they may have no idea what those skills translate into outside hospitality. An intelligent search tool capable of suggesting adjacent occupations could genuinely help.
But discovery should supplement precise search, not replace it.
Sometimes I don't want a system to interpret what I mean. I know exactly what I mean.
That distinction becomes particularly important when someone is unemployed. Searching for a job isn't the same as asking an AI system which restaurant you might enjoy this weekend. Employment affects someone's income, housing, family, healthcare and future career. Candidates should be able to cast the net as widely or narrowly as they choose without having an opaque recommendation layer deciding which opportunities deserve greater visibility.
Employers Should Be Paying Attention Too
This isn't only a job-seeker problem.
Employers spend considerable amounts of money creating job advertisements, promoting vacancies and paying recruitment platforms because they want those opportunities to reach relevant candidates. Traditionally, that meant paying close attention to job titles, keywords, location, salary, skills and the language used throughout the advertisement.
AI-mediated search introduces another variable: how the platform interprets the vacancy.
LinkedIn itself is increasingly applying AI to the employer side of recruitment as well. Its Recruiter products use AI-assisted search to understand hiring intent and identify candidates beyond straightforward keywords and profile filters. LinkedIn says its advanced search can interpret qualifications that may not be explicitly stated on candidate profiles and use contextual information to identify potential matches.
Again, there are obvious benefits.
There is also an uncomfortable question.
What happens when AI is interpreting both sides of the transaction?
The job seeker describes what they want. AI interprets it.
The employer describes whom they want. AI interprets that.
The platform then determines which jobs and candidates should meet.
At what point have we automated so much of recruitment that the two humans involved - the person who needs a job and the person who needs an employee, have less control over finding one another?
The Recruitment Industry Is Already Drowning in Automation
This development also arrives at a strange moment for recruitment.
AI has made applying for jobs easier than ever. Candidates can generate résumés and cover letters, tailor applications and, through third-party tools, submit applications at enormous scale. Employers consequently receive increasingly large volumes of applications and turn to automation to help process them.
The result risks becoming an arms race.
Candidates use AI to find jobs.
Candidates use AI to create applications.
Employers use AI to find candidates.
Employers use AI to screen applications.
Platforms use AI to decide which opportunities and people should be shown to each other.
And somewhere underneath all of this technology are two human beings desperately trying to find each other.
Recent reporting has highlighted exactly how dysfunctional high-volume online applications can become, with recruiters describing vacancies attracting enormous numbers of applications, including poorly matched or automated submissions. Employers then introduce additional filtering technology to deal with the volume that technology helped create in the first place.
That isn't necessarily progress.
It may simply be automation creating a problem that requires more automation to solve.
There Is Another Issue: Who Gets Missed?
Whenever an algorithm decides relevance, there is an unavoidable possibility that something relevant won't be shown.
That doesn't mean the technology is deliberately discriminating against anyone, nor does it mean AI-powered job search will inherently produce worse results. It means job seekers deserve to understand that algorithmic relevance and individual judgment are different things.
A candidate making an unconventional career change is a perfect example.
Their résumé might suggest one career while their ambition points toward another. Their job titles might not neatly correspond with the position they want next. They might have skills developed in an entirely different industry that an employer would value enormously if a human recruiter actually spoke with them.
Recruitment has always struggled with candidates who don't fit neatly into boxes.
We should be careful about building even more sophisticated boxes.
Concerns surrounding automated employment decisions are not theoretical. A current federal case involving Workday is examining allegations that AI-driven hiring technology resulted in discriminatory outcomes for some applicants. Workday denies wrongdoing and says its software evaluates job qualifications rather than protected characteristics, so those allegations should not be treated as established fact. Nevertheless, the case illustrates the broader questions employers, technology companies and regulators are now confronting as algorithms become more involved in employment decisions.
AI Should Be the Assistant, Not the Gatekeeper
I want to be clear about something because criticism of AI often gets reduced to being either "pro-AI" or "anti-AI."
I use AI. I think it is extraordinary technology, and I believe it will fundamentally change recruitment.
What I don't believe is that every technological advancement needs to remove the thing it supposedly improves.
Give candidates an AI search box.
Let them describe their dream job.
Let AI suggest occupations they haven't considered.
Let it explain why a position might suit their background.
Let it uncover transferable skills and broaden someone's horizons.
Then give them the button that says Classic Search.
Because sometimes a job seeker doesn't want an algorithm's interpretation of what they should see. They simply want to search every available job matching the criteria they chose.
That isn't outdated technology.
That's user control.
Why This Matters to Jersey Hired
This development reinforces something we believe strongly at Jersey Hired: technology should make the connection between New Jersey employers and New Jersey job seekers easier, not become the relationship itself.
Recruitment is ultimately local and human.
Someone in Morristown isn't simply looking for a "relevant opportunity." They may be trying to shorten a brutal commute into Manhattan. Someone in Cherry Hill might want an employer accessible from PATCO. Someone in Jersey City may care enormously whether a job is actually near public transportation. Someone in Sussex County might happily travel farther for the right employer but have absolutely no interest in crossing the Hudson every morning.
Those decisions contain nuance that doesn't always fit neatly into a recommendation engine.
Employers are equally complicated. A résumé that looks imperfect to an algorithm may belong to the person who transforms a department. Someone coming from a different industry may bring precisely the perspective a company needs. A candidate whose previous job title doesn't perfectly correspond with the vacancy may still possess every skill required to succeed.
Recruitment has never been an exact science, regardless of how much technology companies would sometimes like us to believe otherwise.
Don't Automate the Humanity Out of Hiring
The irony is that we have spent years complaining that recruitment has become too impersonal.
Candidates complain about automated rejection emails, applicant tracking systems, ghosting and never speaking with an actual recruiter. Employers complain about hundreds of irrelevant applications, candidates applying without reading advertisements and people disappearing halfway through the interview process.
Our response cannot simply be to insert another algorithm between them.
LinkedIn's AI-powered job search may prove extremely useful, and many job seekers may prefer it. If it helps someone discover an opportunity they would otherwise have missed, that's a good outcome.
But the question isn't whether AI search should exist.
It should.
The question is whether job seekers should gradually lose access to traditional ways of searching because a technology company has decided AI represents the future.
On that, I am far less convinced.
Give people better tools. Give them smarter tools. Give them AI.
But give them the choice too.
Because the objective of recruitment isn't to create the smartest algorithm in the room.
It's to help the right human being find the right opportunity.
And sometimes the best person to decide what "right" means is still the person looking for the job.