Jobinder

This is an opinion piece — but with sources where they exist. We run a competitor to LinkedIn and Indeed for one specific market, so we have skin in the game. We'll be upfront about that and try to be honest anyway.

The numbers nobody wants to publish

Mass-apply platforms work by volume. A worker uploads a CV, the platform shows it to dozens of companies, and the company shows the job to hundreds of candidates. The reach is impressive; the signal- to-noise ratio is terrible.

For office work, applying with one click means hundreds of low-effort applications per posting, of which 90% don't match the role. For trades, the inverse happens — companies can't find the workers, because the algorithm doesn't know the difference between a plumber who does heritage restoration and one who does industrial chillers. The taxonomy is too coarse, and the matching score depends on keywords in a CV nobody bothered to optimise.

Independent surveys from the recruitment industry (HR.com, Workable, Eurostat job-vacancy studies) consistently put response rates on unsolicited online applications at around 30%, with replies typically arriving 2-4 weeks after submission. For applications that do reach an interview stage, around 60-70% never receive a final answer either way. We don't have a clean published number specific to trades, but anecdotally it's worse — because trades workers tend not to chase up.

The salary problem

LinkedIn and Indeed both let employers not publish the salary. Most do. The platforms have launched optional salary fields and salary estimates, but adoption is patchy and the estimates are notoriously off.

For workers this means the only way to find out the pay is to apply and get to the third interview. By then both sides have invested hours; when the salary comes in 20% below expectations, both sides feel ripped off. Workers walk away resentful and companies blame “the market.”

For trades specifically, the salary band is the single most important variable. If a company won't publish it, the most likely explanation is that they want to start the conversation below market and negotiate up only if they have to. This is a rational strategy for the company and a terrible experience for the worker.

The algorithm problem

LinkedIn's feed and search results are ranked by a proprietary algorithm that nobody outside Microsoft fully understands. Profiles get boosted when they have certain engagement signals, certain completeness scores, certain “skill endorsements,” certain network effects.

For trades, almost none of those signals exist. A 40-year-old master electrician with three certifications and a year of waiting list of clients has a low-engagement LinkedIn profile, no endorsements, no recent posts, and an empty “featured” section. The algorithm reads that as a low-quality profile. The company looking for that person never sees them.

Indeed's search is more transparent (keywords + location), but the boosting still rewards employers who pay for sponsored postings, which means the worker's feed is more “jobs that pay to be seen” than “jobs that fit.”

The cultural mismatch

LinkedIn was built for and is dominated by white-collar networking. The norms — “humble brag” status posts, “thought leadership” long-form, polished headshots — feel alien to most skilled tradespeople. The result is that the workers who would be the best hires for many companies often don't even have a profile, or have one filled in once and never updated.

Indeed sidesteps this by being more transactional, but the transaction is structured as “upload your CV and wait,” which in trades is a particularly bad fit. A trades CV is rarely the artefact that gets the job — a referral, a recommendation, a portfolio of finished work usually does.

Where we come in (the honest pitch)

We're a swipe-and-match app for skilled trades. Both sides see a salary number upfront — worker says what they want, company says what they pay. Match happens when both swipe right. Negotiation happens in chat, between just the two of you.

We don't run a ranking algorithm. We filter by trade and city only. The pool is smaller than LinkedIn's — we're a year old in the Netherlands — but every profile you see is a real worker or a real company who is actively looking right now.

If you want to see the full mechanic, read our how it works page. If you want to see how we compare to LinkedIn / Indeed / agencies side by side, read why us.

Caveat: we're competing with these platforms. Of course we think what we built is better. But we've also tried to be specific about the failure modes rather than vague — read the post critically.