The disclosed embodiments provide a system for performing sequence modeling for searches. During operation, the system obtains a sequence of jobs associated with activity by a member of an online system. Next, the system applies a word embedding model of a set of job histories to attributes of individual jobs in the sequence of jobs to produce embeddings for the individual jobs. The system then generates a set of power means from the embeddings. Finally, the system outputs the set of power means as an encoded representation of the sequence of jobs, wherein the set of power means is used in generating job recommendations related to the member.