Digital Job Searching and Recruitment Platforms: A Semi-systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the new E-recruitment trend that is pervading the lives of job seekers, included students, and job offers. A semi-systematic literature review on digital job searching and recruiting platform in the last five years was conducted with the aim to develop a preliminary conceptual framework. Following a replicable research process, a final sample of 37 publications was located in five subdimensions - Web Application Framework, Use of Artificial Intelligence technologies, Use of Blockchain Technologies, Type of User, User Experience - grouped by two dimensions of analysis: “Technical implementation of the platform”, “Platform usability analysis”. From our findings it emerges that the first one received strong attention, specifically with regards to subdimensions Web Application Framework and Use of the Artificial Intelligence Technologies; the subdimension Use of the Blockchain Technologies started to attract scholarly attention only from 2020. The second dimension of analysis has received a fair amount of attention over the last five years, but it seems that in 2021 the sub-dimension Type of User is perceived as the most attractive from scholars from different field of studies. The contribution of this work is twofold. Firstly, it tries to shed lights on the main characteristics of the studies about the job searching and recruiting platforms as derived from the publications included in our review identifying appropriate dimensions and sub-dimensions of analysis that could be useful to analyze these platforms in the future. Secondly, for each sub-dimensions we identified the major challenges that authors have set out to address. This specific aspect will be helpful to identify the future research agenda for the topic investigated.