I Tried LinkedIn’s AI Job Search. It Made the Job Hunt Less Grueling.

It’s hard to pinpoint the most painful part of the job hunt — the whole process can feel pretty agonizing.

I remember dreading searching for jobs when I graduated from college. I knew what my interests were and had an idea of where I wanted to end up, but I wasn’t quite sure where to begin my search.

To help remedy some of the challenges that come with job hunting, LinkedIn launched a new feature on Wednesday that allows users to find available jobs by describing what they want in the search bar.

The career platform said in an announcement of the feature on Wednesday that more than 50% of job seekers miss out on relevant opportunities because they don’t know which filters to apply. Additionally, two-thirds of professionals find it difficult to know which titles to search for, the company said in an announcement.

The AI-powered search is designed to understand the user’s intent and provide “precise end-aligned results,” the announcement said.

“Our new AI-powered job search flips the script: you can now simply express what you want in your own words,” Tomer Cohen, chief Product Officer at LinkedIn, wrote in a post announcing the new tool.

I tried out the tool at LinkedIn’s launch event on Tuesday. My biggest takeaway is that I wish I had access to it when I was looking for a job after college.

It makes job hunting feel more approachable

I enjoyed using the new feature because it allowed me to take control of the job search instead of trying to guess what aligns with company-created titles. That alone made the job-hunting process feel more approachable.

Instead of searching for broad roles like “entry-level marketing” and then searching for an industry in the filters, the new feature lets users get more specific. Now, users can type something like, “I want to work in marketing in the video game industry but I have no experience,” and the search will come up with more targeted results related to video gaming.

The new AI-powered search isn’t entirely revolutionary. Previously, users could use filters to narrow their search. Last year, LinkedIn also announced its conversational job search to premium members, which helped translate queries. However, a LinkedIn spokesperson told Business Insider that the technology was “old” and “limited by taxonomies and standardized titles.”

“We learned what queries members liked to use and updated the technology, creating a better, more robust experience,” the spokesperson said. “We found our members really engaged with conversational search, so we made the technology even better.”

The new AI-powered search recognizes nuances in phrasing and intent, the spokesperson told BI. Users can say things like “I want to use my marketing skills to solve climate change” or “I want to use my engineering skills to take me to Mars.”

The search then comes up with relevant roles, even if the exact words don’t appear in the job posting, the spokesperson said.

It’s especially helpful for those who don’t know where to start

If you’ve been an English teacher for 10 years and you’re looking for a teaching job at a new school, “English teacher” might suffice as a keyword in the search bar. With the previous version of LinkedIn job searches, users could have also refined the search by selecting their ideal location and pay range in the filters.

The pathway may not be so clear for recent grads or job seekers looking for a career pivot. I’m 26, so many of my friends know they want a career change, but they don’t know what’s next or how to find it. I could see this being particularly helpful for job seekers who need a starting point to brainstorm possible career paths.

For example, someone who wants to pivot from working in a cybersecurity department at a tech company to a dedicated cybersecurity firm can tailor their search. Similarly, a lawyer looking for a role in a niche area like mining can specify that interest.

Applicants may also want to hedge their job search on limited experience, with searches such as, “I want to work in sales, but I only have customer service experience. Show me opportunities that use both skill sets.”

Based on what I’ve tried so far, it seems like the roles that surfaced were relevant to my search.

For example, I typed in “I want to work in journalism but have no formal writing experience” and found a number of positions I would have been interested at the start of my career.

Many of the roles that surfaced also had a fairly low number of applicants, around 100 or lower, which felt more accessible than some of the high-applicant postings that I used to see.