Dating apps can help job seekers

Some workers turn to creative networking for a chance to get hired in tough market.

- BY GEORGIA HALL AND JEFF GREEN

STUDENT Tiffany Chau, 20, compares dating apps to "another networking platform like everything else."

(CAMILLE COHEN Bloomberg)

Most people use dating apps to find love. Tiffany Chau used one to hunt for a summer internship.

In the fall, the 20-year-old junior at California College of the Arts tailored her Hinge profile to connect with people who could offer job referrals or interviews. One match brought her to a Halloween party, where she networked in hopes of landing a product-design internship for the summer. While there, she got some tips from someone who had recently interviewed at Accenture. As for the connection with her date? Not so much.

"I feel like my approach to the dating apps is it being another networking platform like everything else, like Instagram or LinkedIn," Chau said.

Chau is among a cadre of workers who are using dating apps to boost their job searches. They're recognizing that the online job hunt is broken as unemployed workers flood the system, artificial intelligence screens out resumes and many job-matching programs are overwhelmed. Automation has squeezed human contact out of hiring, which has pushed applicants to seek any path to a live hiring manager, no matter the means.

The overall U.S. unemployment rate continued to climb throughout 2025, reaching 4.6%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And while the number of unemployed high school graduates held steady at about 4.4% in November, the rate for workers with a bachelor’s degree rose to 2.9% from 2.5% a year ago.

About a third of dating app users said they had sought matches for job hookups, according to a ResumeBuilder.com survey of about 2,200 U.S. dating site customers in October. Two-thirds targeted potential paramours who worked at a desirable employer. Three-quarters said they matched with people working in roles they wanted.