When Everyone Is Visible No One Is: Qualifications Visibility and Labor Matching Technologies in Labor Search

The visibility of qualifications is of central importance to labor search in general and the person-job matching process in particular. However, despite the emergence of LinkedIn and a wide variety of other labor matching technologies (LMTs) that magnify qualifications visibility (QV) and shape it in non-obvious ways, there has been very little attention to QV as a concept, its antecedents, and its consequences. Accordingly, the objectives of this paper are to: (1) define QV and elaborate its dimensionality, (2) delineate how it is magnified and shaped by LMTs, (3) draw on theories of visibility, signaling, and strategic self-presentation to devise a theoretical model of labor search that places QV at its center, and (4) work through the implications of this model for future research on the influence of emerging LMTs and QV on labor search in an organizational context.