So, I have been in the modern-day dating space for over a decade. I have seen it change from a yahoo messenger chatroom to tinder, a drastic decrease in the lead time, hassles of a landing page easing out with a cultural shift, the elevator pitches changing, a shift in the drivers and dating becoming a lot more transactional.
Anyway, I also explored the job market. As the essence of human psychology remains the same, I found a number of similar patterns happening in both markets.
1) Job portals/ dating apps have a plethora of options but quite a low conversion rate. For every job application posted on portals, thousands of candidates apply, but none meet the cut. Similarly, the gender ratio on apps is quite skewed (18 guys for 1 girl), but none of the guys make the cut.
2) Supposedly, if you work with a firm but don’t like your role, and an opening in your preferred area arises, the company will consider you first for the position. In the same way, when a partner feels the need for love after an unforeseen breakup or societal pressure to ‘settle down,’ they first consider the friend-zoned person, so efforts never go to waste. The USP, in this case, becomes familiarity and trust.
3) Referrals (introduction by an employee/ mutual friend), are more organic and generally have a higher conversion. Such job stints/ relationships generally also have a higher lifetime value (LTV)
4) ) Staying stuck in toxic jobs/ relationships based on the time already invested is common but unadvisable (Sunk cost fallacy).
5) With an increasing sense of individualism, being your boss mindset, the gig economy (Uberisation of the workforce) is on a rise analogous to which dating is becoming a lot more transactional.
6) Perfect job/ love is so hard to find these days, is an oxymoron. Game theory talks about two styles of decision-making- optimizing & maximizing. Optimizing is choosing the most appropriate from a limited set, maximizing is to keep on searching till we don’t find the best. With the rapid advent of technology and capitalism, we have countless options in everything, from toothpaste to a love partner, and are using maximizing style everywhere. Scientific studies prove that it leads to less satisfaction than the optimizing style of decision-making. As eloquently put by Barry Schwartz in ‘The Paradox of Choice’, there are four reasons why this happens.
Firstly, with so many choices our brain in dogma, ends up making none. In dating, active seeking via apps or otherwise, doesn’t translate to finding a ‘soulmate’.
Secondly, after the decision, we feel at a loss about missing out on the good features of alternatives.
Thirdly, choices increase expectations. After deciding, the joy doesn’t match up and leads to disappointment.
Fourthly, if an unforeseen hiccup happens later, we blame ourselves for the decision.
Having choices is great, but an optimum number, post that it ends up doing more harm than good.
Later,
Sidhant
