If you logged onto LinkedIn at any point in the past day, you may have seen a lot of buzz regarding a post that Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn’s chief product officer, posted on May 7 describing the new digital toolbox of AI tools that the company is introducing.

“Within less than five years, approximately 70% of us will need to acquire new skills to stay competitive in the workforce,” writes Cohen as he kicks off his message. Great. Now I feel stressed. You too? There’s more. And yes, like every other headline in the world today, it involves AI.

a slew of new ai tools

“More than 10% of job titles today didn’t even exist a couple of decades ago, from Prompt Engineers and Cloud Architects to Social Media Managers or SEO Specialists… The core issue in the job search today is discovery — often requiring an understanding of the right keywords, filters, and the intricacies of the system itself.”

That I agree with, big time. There’s so much chaff out there, it’s difficult to sort the wheat (the desirable posts) from the junk.

• AI-powered job search: “More than half of job seekers miss relevant opportunities because they don’t know which filters to use. Our new AI-powered job search flips the script: you can now simply express what you want in your own words.” Rather than speaking like a Furby in search-bar terms, you can use more natural language to search for what you want, like how you’d talk to ChatGPT.
• Job match: “More than a third of job seekers struggle to determine if they’re a strong match for a job. Our new and improved job match feature transparently shows your compatibility level with each listing, making it easier to zero in on the most relevant opportunities. Premium subscribers gain even deeper insights, including job match ratings and actionable suggestions for standing out in an increasingly competitive job market.”
• Hiring insights. For those searching for jobs, Cohen writes that “our new hiring insights on every job provides transparency around job listings, showing verifications, typical response times, and indicating companies that are actively reviewing candidates.” And for those doing the hiring, Hiring Assistant streamlines the technical tasks of searching for candidates

There’s also personalized AI coaching and a way to chart a career path, with AI advising you on which steps to take next in order to advance up the job ladder.

One of my chief complaints about LinkedIn’s job search is that while I may have all the job alerts set to ping me with in-app notifications and emails as soon as a job is posted, I very often click through to find it’s a re-post of some job opening that’s been up—either on LinkedIn or another website—for weeks or even months.

By then, I figure it’s like getting in line as number 600 at the bakery. Too little, too late. Cohen doesn’t mention this specific, LinkedIn problem as one the AI tools will solve, but my fingers are crossed.

Job searching is one of the most soul-sucking pursuits known to modern humankind. Anything that makes it less of a slog is a step in the right direction.