A "wrong hill" example in our industry (recruitment software) is a focus on getting as many as possible candidates to find and apply for jobs.
If I sell widgets, then yes, I want as many as possible people to come and buy them, and I really only care about the colour of their money.
However when as a widget company I am advertising jobs, I really want only qualified candidates to apply. Otherwise I am drowning in people I just need to sort through, and reject - and when I reject them, they may stop buying my widgets.
In this situation, bounce rates (e.g. people leaving the site after viewing a job) and a lot of other common metrics are meaningless without far more context.
The equivalent in widget selling is time-wasting leads. When you are advertising a job you are looking for leads and unqualified people are just bad leads.
Having said this there is little you can do about this problem since any well advertised position will attract the unqualified since the cost is so low to just mass-blast your cv.
I have always wanted to have a fee (say $500) to apply for a position and refunded $1000 to the candidates that actually have the skills they claim and which match the job requirements. Real candidates would be rewarded for applying (easy $500) paid for by all the time wasters and dunning-kruger types. While this appeals to me I doubt this idea would be viable in the real world :)
I think what you're looking for is something like a preliminary interview round that is cheap for you to administer, combined with a financial reward for those you select to go to the next level of the process.
For incentive reasons, the budget for this must come out of the hiring company's recruiting budget. Otherwise, it's a great way for unethical folks to extract money out of the applicant pool.
An alternative way is to set up some sort of competition with prizes, and then recruit from those who do well at it.
Schemes like this have been tried, though from memory it was more at the level of the candidate paying $5 to apply, no refunds.
But as you can imagine, legit companies don't really want to do it, since their reputation can be besmirched. And shyster companies/recruitment agencies anecdotally played the system for profit.
Something like this does exist though in schemes like Amway and Tupperware. With Tupperware, to join, I read that you need to shell out $2500 for your own set of the product. Then, if you don't make the grade, you don't get that money back. Not quite the same, since you always get the job.
Interesting idea. Aren't you afraid that it would attract qualified candidates who are just interested in earning easy $500 with no intentions of actually getting the job?
It is just an idea, but the idea is that you would only pay out after the interview process. If you actually get good people applying then your job would be to try and attract them to come and work with you. Sure some would just be in it for the money, but as long as you attract some serious people then it would be worth it.
If I sell widgets, then yes, I want as many as possible people to come and buy them, and I really only care about the colour of their money.
However when as a widget company I am advertising jobs, I really want only qualified candidates to apply. Otherwise I am drowning in people I just need to sort through, and reject - and when I reject them, they may stop buying my widgets.
In this situation, bounce rates (e.g. people leaving the site after viewing a job) and a lot of other common metrics are meaningless without far more context.