Chrome extension lets you apply for tons of remote jobs with just a click
By Steven Melendez
If you’re thinking about looking for a remote job, now might be the time.
Many businesses have said they’re leaving in place their work-from-home policies from the pandemic era. And a wave of employee departures that’s been dubbed the “Great Resignation” has given workers in some fields more leverage to negotiate the salary and perks they want, including flexibility to keep working remotely even as pandemic restrictions ease.
The trouble is, searching for a new job can mean a lot of time spent filtering through online ads, LinkedIn postings and corporate websites to find opportunities that match your needs and skills. Once you find a job you think you might want, your work is far from over: You typically have to fill out an online job application that asks for information you already have in your résumé and have already transcribed into every other job application you’ve filled out during your job search. And with competition fierce for coveted remote roles, you’ll probably have to fill out a lot of applications.
To simplify the application process, the job search company Ladders has rolled out a new extension for Google Chrome that allows you to enter your basic information once, then apply for jobs on many popular career sites with a single click. The Chrome extension, called Apply4Me, relies on actual humans to verify that the information you provide ends up in the right place on those online forms at sites like Monster, CareerBuilder, LinkedIn and Ladders’ own site, as well as on many corporate application portals. Ladders sends job applicants a confirmation email when their applications are submitted.
“We know that filling out basic information takes about 18 minutes of boring grunt work per job application,” Ladders CEO Marc Cenedella said in a statement. “This extension is going to save the average job seeker nine hours a month.”
The current wave of resignations comes as some employees realize how much time and money they’ve saved during virus-related closures, while others find themselves burned out from working public-facing jobs or dealing with other workplace stress. One Microsoft study recently found that 41% of workers globally would consider leaving their jobs in the next year, and the U.S. Labor Department recently reported that about 4 million people quit their jobs in April, a 20-year record.
Apply4Me doesn’t work perfectly for every job application — some still ask relatively unusual questions that need to be filled out by the applicant, and users can decide whether they want to do this themselves or have Ladders add a note asking for a follow-up question for these topics. It’s also available only to subscribers to Ladders’ premium plan, which costs $29.99 per month, or $12.99 per month if prepaid for a year. But for workers planning on submitting a fair number of job applications, outsourcing the actual applying may prove to be a reasonable trade-off.