Can a Digital Job Search Coach Reduce Unemployment ? Experimental Evidence from France

This paper evaluates the impact of Bob Emploi, a digital platform designed to provide personalized job search advice and coaching to the unemployed. The platform, developed by a nonprofit organization with access to France’s public employment agency data, aims to replicate traditional counseling services through automated tools. The experiment included 212,277 individuals, with 56.3 percent randomly assigned to receive encouragement to use the platform. Although our intervention increased Bob Emploi’s usage by 27 percentage points, the effects of the platform remained limited. Users made modest changes to their search methods, showed slightly higher engagement with standard employment services, and felt more supported in their search. However, the evaluation finds no impact on time spent searching, occupational scope, or job seeker well-being. Most importantly, the platform did not improve any employment outcomes over an 18-month follow-up period, with precise null effects across all subgroups. These results suggest that digital job search assistance platforms may need to combine coaching with specific job recommendations to effectively improve job seekers’ labor market outcomes.