Candidate behavior has always evolved alongside technology. 

Before the 1990s, candidates were discovering jobs through newspaper classifieds. Then, they started to go to online job boards. Later, search engines and social media became additional career discovery channels.

Now, behavior is shifting again. Increasingly, candidates are bypassing the search bar and starting their career journeys with a question on ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Grok.

The Rise and Rise of ChatGPT

To put some numbers behind this: ChatGPT now serves roughly 900 million weekly active users worldwide – more than double its audience from a year ago. At that scale, we’re no longer talking about an emerging, niche platform. It’s a mainstream destination where hundreds of millions of people are researching decisions, comparing options, and thinking through their next career moves.

Industry reports indicate that 1 in 6 queries directly relate to job searches and career transitions. 

Instead of guessing the right keywords (like in the case of search engine queries), candidates are using these tools as thought partners or sounding boards. They ask highly specific, deeply contextual questions they would never type into a standard search bar:

  • “Find me top tier product manager roles at AI companies that offer a great work-life balance.”
  • “I have five years of B2B marketing experience in the manufacturing industry. What other industries value these skills, and what salary should I expect?”
  • “Am I underpaid at $85k for a regional sales manager role in Chicago?”
  • “What is the culture actually like at [Company A] versus [Company B]?”

Many of these aren’t traditional job searches. They’re the messy, exploratory conversations candidates have when they’re evaluating what’s next in their careers. 

If candidates are spending their time inside these platforms, the question for recruiting teams is pretty straightforward. 

How do we show up there?

OpenAI Ads: A New Way to Reach Candidates

OpenAI’s introduction of advertising inside ChatGPT matters for recruiting teams as it gives employers a direct line to candidates exactly where job discovery and career conversations are happening.

For talent acquisition teams, this isn’t about replacing job boards, or abandoning search engine marketing (SEM) or social media marketing. It’s about adding a new channel to your recruitment marketing media mix so you can reach candidates at the precise moment their intent is being formed.

It also means additional effort and overhead for your recruitment marketing team. They need to build the skills and expertise running ads within ChatGPT.

Or…

Helping Our Clients Lead the Way

Joveo is the first recruitment marketing platform to offer end-to-end campaign setup and management for OpenAI ads for employers and talent. By including OpenAI Ads as a source, we give recruiting teams an easy way to test, manage, and measure this new channel alongside the rest of their recruitment marketing media.

The hunt for the right career is increasingly starting with a question (or a prompt). The recruiting teams that adapt today will be the ones there to answer.