TikTok is already a search engine, an ecom bazaar, a box office, and a travel promoter–and now it’s becoming a job board for Gen Z, with both companies and candidates seeking one another out on the platform.
Fast Company points to an application from TikToker @filmwcolleen, who tagged Jubilee, the digital media company absolutely killing it on YouTube in the leadup to the presidential election, in a video where she applied for its Digital Media Producer role. The video’s comments section was full of people @’ing Jubilee’s TikTok account and vouching for her, including one who said they’d sent her vidapplication to a recruiter at the media company. @filmwcolleen later confirmed Jubilee had invited her for an interview.
@filmwcolleen asked me what makes me unique. Here is my answer. #dreamjob #hireme #shootingmyshot #jubilee #jubileevideo #application #job #videosubmission #videoapplication ♬ original sound – Colleen
Subscribe to get the latest creator news
Putting a whole job application on a personal social media account is quite a change from what millennials and older Gen Z have been told for years. We were warned that companies would scrutinize prospective employees’ public social media accounts, so it was better to keep them private–and not to post anything you wouldn’t want an employer to see. That tended to lead to a strict separation between people’s work personas and their social media (unless you were somewhere like LinkedIn…).
But now, not only are TikTok users not keeping their content private, they’re using it to advertise themselves to employers. According to data from Resume Genius, one in five Gen Z’ers say they’ve applied to jobs and/or gotten interviews through TikTok. Many of them post videos with pointed hashtags like #tiktokresume.
And, per Fast Company, employers are recognizing this trend: It points to Loop Media Company, which posted a video to its company page looking for a new graphic designer. “Join our creative team as a full-time, on site, Graphic Designer and bring your artistic vision to life. Apply now!” Loop wrote in the video description, with an email for candidates to ping with their resumes.
“Social media doesn’t just have to be for passive scrolling—it’s a critical tool for proactive job seekers,” Eva Chan, a career expert at Resume Genius, told Fast Company. “If you’re not incorporating it in your job search, you’re leaving opportunities on the table.”
What we’re curious about is whether TikTok will recognize this trend and jump on building tools to facilitate job-seeking and job-finding within its platform. Could it construct a TikTok Shop for jobs? Could it somehow monetize that market? It’s already proven keen to get a slice of things like movie tickets and travel bookings, and while building a job board would be much more labor-intensive (no pun intended), it’s possible TikTok will see opportunity there to connect its users and/or brand partners with resources to find both work and workers.
