In early 2023, during a major wave of tech sector layoffs, Jed Schneiderman saw a lot of people in his LinkedIn network asking for help with finding new work.

For many, the experience seemed to be the same, Schneiderman tells strategy. “I saw a lot of people announcing they were open for work, had struggled to find a job or land an interview, or that they were being ghosted. There were a whole bunch of problems around the recruiting process and finding jobs,” he explains. “That’s why I started something called ‘Jed’s Job Board.'”

Scheiderman, a veteran of the marketing, media and tech sectors, harnessed his own personal network and hunted down a bunch of openings, then created a Google spreadsheet. What started with 40 listings eventually ballooned to more than 400, all curated around marketing, media and digital. “Having been in the space for more than 20 years, that’s what I know. That’s who I’m connected with,” he explains.

The job board had considerable traction, drawing more than 200,000 viewers. It was in that experience that Schneiderman realized a curated job-hunting experience “is something of great value” to applicants who might not want to waste their time sorting through a bunch of postings that aren’t relevant to them.

That was the first insight that led to the founding of CleverHire, a new job platform that Schneiderman has co-founded, which caters to the marketing, media and tech sectors. The second is that hiring managers in those sectors have what Schneiderman describes as a “yield problem.”

That’s because, according to research conducted by Schneiderman while devising CleverHire, the average job posting receives 118 applications, and the majority – 80% – are rejected within 11 seconds. “If someone applies, getting noticed and picked off the pile is difficult,” he elaborates. “Only 2% of resumes are screened for a first-round interview.”

The problem is that the application process on most modern platforms is simply too easy. In some cases, it’s as simple as clicking one button and uploading a resume or cover letter. “I could spend less than 10 seconds applying for a job,” Schneiderman says. “So hiring managers get a lot of applicants who aren’t qualified – even those who can’t work in the country, or who have no experience in the sector they’re applying to work in.”

To address this issue, CleverHire employs one-way video interview technology. It’s an adaptation from another program Schneiderman is involved in, the M2T Collective, that aims “to create opportunities for real-world experience through job rotation.” By employing video applications in that program, he says, he saw how people could answer questions and show their best selves – thus improving the overall quality of applicants.

“When you ask people to do a little bit more work upfront, fewer people will do that work, and that’s a good thing,” Schneiderman says. “As a hiring manager, if someone isn’t willing to put a little bit of effort into the hiring process, that’s probably not someone you want on your team.”

So the format allows for a win on both sides. For applicants, it allows them to spend more time considering the role and how they’d fit into it, thus enabling them to present themselves in the most compelling way. For employers, it winnows out those low-quality, unqualified applicants and saves on wasted time while being more likely to produce a candidate that will excel in the role.

It also allows for a streamlining of the first interview process, eliminating the need for a lengthy email back-and-forth to schedule those discussions. And, it enables the hiring manager to share responses with members of the prospective applicant’s future team, so that they can provide input on and get invested in the candidate.

“We’ve seen strong interest from companies who like the idea of saving time to find the optimal candidate for a position,” Schneiderman says. “If you think most companies post an open job requisition because there’s work to be done, the idea is that if we can expedite the hiring process to get someone in the seat and doing the job, there’s huge benefits from both a time value and opportunity cost perspective.”

“Most companies want to fill their open roles as quickly as possible,” he adds.

The platform launched today with postings from Because I Love It, Tidal Commerce, The Podcast Exchange, and others.