‘Tell Me About Yourself.’ Welcome To The Jobification Of Dating

Lip gloss, breath mints and... a CV. While it may not seem like a typical first date checklist, it could be the new normal as people increasingly treat their hunt for a partner like they would a search for a job, with love-seekers using a range of office documents to help them find The One.

In our time-poor culture, it seems people are turning to a methodical approach to dating. Think LinkedIn meets Hinge, with a bit of networking thrown in. ‘In the dating world, we’ve seen this trending,’ says Dr Caroline West, a lecturer and sex and relationships expert at Bumble, ‘from date-me docs to post-date analysis on TikTok and Dating Wrapped [a video summary of the best and worst dates], to checklists and Google documents.’

Take date-me docs, a relatively new concept that’s on the rise. These are resumé- style posts that include all the ‘about me’ information you would on a cover letter. They’re shared on social media, like a personal ad. Some are created as Google Docs or PowerPoints. Some people have even created websites about themselves specifically to attract a partner.

What’s more, more than 300 date-me docs are stored in a Date Me Directory – a database for anyone looking for a relationship, founded by 29-year-old Steve Krouse in 2022. He created the database to find a home for date-me docs after coming across a number of them on different websites. Creating his own date-me doc led to around 20 dates. ‘What happens for a lot of people is that they read a doc and it feels like it was written for them,’ he tells Grazia. ‘They feel inspired to reach out to that person and write a doc of their own.’

Another date-me doc in the database belongs to Ariane Sherine, a 43-year-old singer and songwriter from east London. She came across the Date Me Directory in January this year after growing frustrated with dating apps. ‘They feel superficial, because they’re based on appearance,’ she says. ‘They give us zero information on the person, so you’re basing your decision on whether to swipe right or left on their looks, name, age and location. You don’t get the information you need to decide whether dating them is worth pursuing.’

Sherine explains that the people on the Date Me Directory are different to those she used to see on apps. ‘They’re professional, successful people who had maybe, like me, paid too much attention to their careers and put romance on the back burner,’ she says. ‘When you’re looking for someone to spend your life with, it’s not feasible to do it on the basis of what they look like. If people invest a lot of time, as they do in Google Docs, it shows they’re serious and that they care about meeting someone.’

If you find asking for feedback after a job interview uncomfortable, a new TikTok trend might not be for you, but some are sending out dating exit surveys. People call previous dates to find out what went wrong, or send over a questionnaire.

Marilyn Nolte, 25, from Tennessee, takes this one step further by doing ‘exit surveys’ for other people, which she films and uploads to her TikTok page. The idea came to her in November, when she visited a friend in New York who had been ghosted and wanted to know why. ‘I said, “Why don’t we just call him and see what he has to say?”’ she explains. ‘That was the very first one we did. I ended up talking to him for 10 minutes and found out he had got back together with an ex-girlfriend.’

Nolte now gets anywhere between 15 to 30 requests for exit surveys every week from her 31.4k followers. ‘I ask how they met, first impressions, if they would rate their overall experience and what led to the demise,’ she says. ‘I finish by asking if there is any feedback she should have on her file.’

Although these exit surveys can be about self-improvement, they’re also a tool to combat some of the toxic behaviours buoyed by online dating, such as ghosting, catfishing, gaslighting and breadcrumbing.

Kamayln Kaur, a psychotherapist and anxiety expert, says one of the main reasons people are treating dating like a job is because dating online can be relentless. ‘The abundance of options and vast pool of potential partners has encouraged people to adopt a more systematic and selective approach to dating, very similar to job hunting,’ she says. ‘Treating it like a job allows individuals to approach it with a strategic mindset, one that will stop them from wasting time on the wrong people.’

For Dr. West, there could be several reasons we're seeing are more people approach dating like a job, including as a response to the 'overall pressures of finding romantic connections', the result of 'different learning styles', or even to make things feel more 'manageable'. She adds that this trend can come at a cost. 'The focus and obsession with efficiency can often actually detract from genuine connections ,' she says, adding that research from Bumble shows over a quarter (24%) of singles in the UK are ‘put off’ by people who are treating dating like a job.

Of course, there isn’t a spreadsheet in the world that can take away the messy, complicated aspect of finding love. But, as Sherine says, ‘What makes a good, long-lasting partnership is what you have in common.’ Which is easier to find when you have more than a picture of a guy with a cute dog to go on.

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