More than 25 million Americans were laid off in April, and that’s just the official count. Unofficially, some economists estimate that more than 52 percent of Americans under the age of 45 have lost jobs, hours, or been furloughed. The unemployment rate could eventually top 30 percent. That means everyone—from lawyers to waiters, software engineers to carpenters to marketers—will be affected.
Clearly, these are not normal times. So we can’t rely on the “normal” tools we’ve previously used to help people find work: the LinkedIn and Craigslist searches, coffee chats, recruiters, staffing agencies, and so on. Those methods can’t hit the speed, scale, and placement quality that companies or candidates will need coming out of this crisis. But verticalized jobs marketplaces—platforms that focus on one industry, role, candidate type, or demographic—can and will. Now is the time to be building them.