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During the COVID-19 global health crisis, institutions, policymakers, and academics alike have called for practicing resilience to overcome its ongoing disruptions. This paper contributes a comparative study of the job search experiences of working-class and upper-middle-class job seekers, particularly in relation to their resilience practices during the pandemic. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 12 working-class and 11 upper-middle-class job seekers in the U.S., we unpack challenges resulting from both the pandemic and unemployment and job seekers’ novel practices of navigating these challenges in their everyday disrupted life. Job seekers’ ongoing negotiation with their resources, situations, and surroundings gives practical meanings to building everyday resilience, which we conceptualize as an ongoing process of becoming resilient. While job seekers across classes experienced similar challenges, working-class job seekers took on additional emotional labor in their everyday resilience due to their limited experience in the digital job search space, competition with higher-degree holding job seekers applying for the same jobs, limited social support networks, and at times, isolation. By foregrounding the uneven distribution of emotional labor in realizing the promise of resilience along class lines, this work cautions against the romanticization of resilience and calls for a more critical understanding of resilience in CSCW. 

Abstract Technology integration in the workplace context has led to substantial growth in high- versus low-skilled jobs, and thus, further disparities between workers and those who were already unemployed. Technology use is also being used more frequently in the job search process, which could further lead to disparities, especially for job seekers experiencing marginalization. Thus, we conducted a controlled longitudinal field deployment of two employment-based tools—RevueCV and InterviewApp—among 46 Switzerland-based unemployed job seekers. Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we sought to understand how the tools affected job search self-efficacy, subjective norms and job search attitudes—the three factors that influence a job seekers’ job search intention. Although participants appreciated the support the two tools provided, and the inherent study benefits, our interview and survey results showed no substantial changes in their TPB values, primarily because the tools provided overlapping services with the local job placement offices. However, results of our interviews found autonomy, or the lack thereof, to be a key factor contributing to job seeker dissatisfaction. We introduce the concept of self-regulation to the TPB as an explanatory construct and contribute design and theoretical implications to support autonomy among job seekers with less control of their job search. 

This article contributes results of a longitudinal field study of SkillsIdentifier, an employment tool originally designed and assessed in the United States (U.S.), to support “underrepresented” job seekers in identifying and articulating their employment skills. To understand whether the tool could support the needs of job seekers outside the U.S., we assessed it among 16 job seekers with limited education and language resources in Switzerland. While many of our results mirrored those of the U.S., we found that the tool was especially beneficial for non-French speaking immigrants who needed support describing their skills outside of their native language. We also found that listing skills like “active listening” without important context was insufficient and risked hiding key skills and meaning behind those skills to employers. Taking these factors into account, we illustrate the design implications of our findings and directions for practitioners who wish to design employment tools in support of job seekers, especially those who have traditionally been excluded from the labor market. We then provide insight into the potential for unintended consequences as a result of focusing solely on skills in a post-COVID labor market and contribute ways to mitigate them. 

Online employment resources are now as important as offline personal and professional networks, which have been pivotal in finding employment. However, it is unclear, which specific online resources are key to employment and how job seekers take advantage of them. Therefore, in an online survey of 768 job seekers, we investigated which online platforms, specific job search phases, behaviors, and job search strategies job seekers used in their job search, and which of these were associated with positive outcomes. We examined whether these results correlated with demographic factors and found differences in online platform use among income, gender, years of education, and race. Our results suggest that higher-income job seekers were more likely to use different strategies and more likely to get callbacks than lower-income job seekers. We raise new questions around demographics and technology and discuss the need for practitioners to design for a wider variety of job seekers. 

Social media has become an effective recruitment tool for higher-waged and white-collar professionals. Yet, past studies have questioned its effectiveness for the recruitment of lower-waged workers. It is also unclear whether or how employers leverage social media in their recruitment of low-wage job seekers, and how social media could better support the needs of both stakeholders. Therefore, we conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with employers of low-wage workers in the U.S. We found that employers: use social media, primarily Facebook, to access large pools of active low-wage job seekers; and recognize indirect signals about low-wage job seekers’ commitment and job readiness. Our work suggests that there remains a visible, yet unaddressed power imbalance between low-wage workers and employers in the use of social media, which risks further destabilizing the precarious labor market. 

Today’s employment applications enable job seekers to improve their skill sets and build social networks with potential employers and colleagues. However, many of these tools cater to higher-educated and relatively affluent job seekers. Research suggests that underrepresented job seekers face challenges associated with articulating their skill sets and understanding those skills’ transferability across jobs and might prefer employment tools to address these types of challenges over others. Because such articulation is vital in today’s job market, we designed, developed, and evaluated SkillsIdentifier, a tool to assist job seekers in identifying their current skill set. We evaluated the tool with 20 U.S. job seekers and found that it helped to enhance their career identity and self-efficacy. We contribute the empirical results of our evaluation and design implications for supporting these constructs among underrepresented job seekers. 

Rapid changes in technology are expected to limit the availability of decent work for millions of people worldwide. This particularly disadvantages socially and economically marginalized job seekers who are already being pushed into lower-wage precarious work with increasing levels of job insecurity. While the number of employment support tools that match job seekers to employers has been growing, marginalized job seekers still significantly rely on physical employment centers that have a track record of supporting the specific needs associated with marginalization and economic constraints. We drew from prior HCI and CSCW literature uncovering the employment and technology-related challenges that marginalized job seekers face and from the Psychology of Working Theory to frame our research questions and results. To complement this prior work, we investigated how employment center staff work with marginalized job seekers and moderate factors to securing decent work. We found in an interview of 21 employment center staff--career advisors and business services coordinators--that they performed significant work to prepare and encourage marginalized job seekers in applying to positions, while also training employers to be more inclusive and open-minded. Career advisors worked directly with job seekers to connect them with external resources, provide encouragement, strategize long-term goals, and mitigate feelings of stigma. Business services coordinators worked directly with employers to prepare job positions and employee support programs. Drawing from the expertise of employment centers, we contribute a framework for designing employment support tools that better serve the needs of marginalized job seekers, and outline tangible design implications that complement the support these organizations provide. 

This brief explores how technology impacts the job search process for marginalized workers, defined as the disproportionately unemployed and underemployed. 

Technologies play a key role in finding employment in today's job market. However, the majority of those who are unemployed, e.g., individuals who have limited education or who are racial and ethnic minorities, are not well supported by existing digital employment tools. Therefore, we conducted an 8-month randomized field experiment to evaluate two tools-Review-Me and Interview4-designed to address these job seekers' key employment needs. We used the Theory of Planned Behavior to examine the tools' effects on three factors influencing job seekers' job search intention: job search self-efficacy, subjective norms, and job search attitudes. Our interview data suggested that the tools positively affected all factors, but our survey results were mixed. Interview results suggest that these trends were caused by positive feedback and self-reflection. We contribute ways to integrate these two features into future tools for, and techniques to increase study retention among, underrepresented job seekers. 

Returning citizens (formerly incarcerated individuals) face great challenges finding employment, and these are exacerbated by the need for digital literacy in modern job search. Through 23 semi-structured interviews and a pilot digital literacy course with returning citizens in the Greater Detroit area, we explore tactics and needs with respect to job search and digital technology. Returning citizens exhibit great diversity, but overall, we find our participants to have striking gaps in digital literacy upon release, even as they are quickly introduced to smartphones by friends and family. They tend to have employable skills and ability to use offline social networks to find opportunities, but have little understanding of formal job search processes, online or offline. They mostly mirror mainstream use of mobile technology, but they have various reasons to avoid social media. These and other findings lead to recommendations for digital literacy programs for returning citizens.