The unemployment rate is a scary, scary thing. The percentage of people who don't have jobs rose in 27 states in June, with the national unemployment rate holding at 8.2 percent. Through it all, we've heard the stories of those who've tirelessly tried to land a job, whether it be by filling out a million applications or networking until they can't shake another hand.
While giving it all that you've got is certainly encouraged, what if there's something inherently wrong with how the candidate presents themselves? How can they manage the way their professional career goes if they aren't managing themselves properly?
At WorkSimple, we realized this was an issue. In the past, our sole focus was on the team and business side of things. Our social performance platform was the first system based on real work and social goals that happen throughout the workday. It's designed for every employee, it's easy to use, and it focuses on communication, visibility, transparency, with a game changing user experience.
However, we recently decided to add another player to the WorkSimple family: our Personal Edition. We released the Personal Edition of our platform because we felt many knowledgeable candidates were going unnoticed. The standard resume format was failing to communicate their accomplishments, and in today's competitive job market, people must stand out through their wins. The old-school job history with titles doesn't cut it anymore.
As companies try to do more with less, they'll focus more on potential employees who are individual contributors and able to self-manage. The shift in efficiency that we're now experiencing -- the unrelenting need to do more with less through web-based technologies --isn't going away. As a result, there's clearly an attempt to cut any inefficient areas of the business. So, how can potential employees self-manage? How can they show their worth? We believe demonstrating accomplishments and contributions with a platform like WorkSimple is key.
With our Personal Edition, we help candidates to showcase their accomplishments and results, social goals that made an impact on past teams or adjacent teams, and how their work supported a previous organization as whole. At its core, the Personal Edition presents a snapshot of a candidate's recognition, positive feedback, and success in one portfolio. This helps a candidate to show off what they do well and assists an employer to envision how they can bring results to a new position in the future.
We've already seen a lot of positive feedback from our Personal Edition. Our user growth skyrocketed by 300 percent since we launched WorkSimple's Personal Edition. An internal survey also indicated that 75 percent of users are looking to build a work portfolio and control their professional reputation. Candidates want a new way to manage their professional brands so that they can land that coveted job. Our Personal Edition allows them to do so.
Sure, there are a lot of work portfolio platforms that can help job seekers to land their next position. What makes WorkSimple any different? Well, we help candidates to act proactively, instead of reactively. WorkSimple's approach is to do a little internal digging and get candidates to manage the way they present themselves as potential workers sooner rather than later.
With WorkSimple, candidates have the opportunity to capture all accomplishments, show off endorsements and feedback from previous co-workers, and socially share their work story through platforms like LinkedIn. In the end, the candidate puts a face to the application, which can be particularly difficult in a competitive job market.
We believe now is the time to focus on the individual. Only when applicants proactively manage themselves, tell the story of why they are a good candidate, and convince an employer that they are worthy of hiring will those no's turn to yes's. And, we believe that WorkSimple can help candidates to transform themselves into something remarkable, no matter what their background is. In the end, isn't that the whole point?