I am working on contract work through a third-party company, and I proposed them such a solution: I employ them, pay them a percentage [1], they keep me busy with work, just like any serious actor has an agent. It is a great business model for everybody, and their workload is small enough they can represent a dozen people with ease.

They actually liked the idea, have spoken of switching to such a model eventually, but the sad reality is that they make much more money the “classic way”: the big client gives them the contract, and they subcontract to me. This way they can skim 30-60% off the amount paid to the sorry bugger that does all the work at the bottom, without lifting a finger.

It is very sad no one seems interested to serve this need, except very few examples (there’s that NY management agency people have been recommending for the past 10 years, which have such a backlog of candidates there’s no real chance of getting in). If I had any interest in being a salesman and recruiter, I’d build such an agency in a heartbeat.

1: I’d pay for an actual agent 10-15% of my daily rate for the duration of the contract, which is much more than the numbers presented in the article.

(For those who don't get the reference: https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

   “If you are not paying, you are the product,” said Andre Hamra, Refer’s CEO. “It incentivizes us to actually help the person.”   

And that dude thought it would be a good idea to take the money of people looking for jobs instead of the companies that are swimming in cash.

I bet he actually believes his lies himself.

hopefully they will at least have nice bunk beds in the corporate dorms.

I see a big problem with job scams from "legitimate" companies advertising jobs they have no plans to fulfill or which do not exist at all. They seem to do this because they employ HR and recruiters, and it looks good if job openings are on their site. It's a real problem.

I believe there could be a solution: charge $500 to post an opening and give $50 to each of ten AI-vetted qualified candidates. That means the candidate had a real job interview and passed it without AI assistance. They get $50 to interview.

If the company doesn't hire any of ten qualified candidates, then they can pay another $500, or stop pretending that the job they're advertising for is real.

What do you think of this novel model?

On the candidate side, it allows them to interview once and then only be called into a job interview if they're being paid $50 to do so.

The system could also go the other way and prevent candidates from making interviewing their living, by only inviting them to a limited number of interviews with job offers on the table - such as three such interviews job offers. After that they don't get more job offers since they're not really on the market.

The AI could also represent salary reality more transparently.

Basically, overall it should be the companies hiring that pay, not candidates who have lots of their time wasted.

What do you think of such a market-based approach?

When I saw wsj.com I figured this would be an "article" that's mostly manipulative, fear-mongering and doom and gloom.

If you're paying to maybe get hired, you're not the client - you're basically being sold to yourself.