Why finding a job is so awful right now

Jolles is one of the job-search long-haulers. It’s a day-to-day existence where logging on in the morning means parsing open roles to determine which ones might be worth a shot and which postings might be fake. And it means figuring out how to tweak a résumé so it scores well with the software most big companies use to screen applicants.

It’s also a world where spreadsheets are often like odometers on a frustrating journey: applications submitted, recruiters pinged, rejections received, and household budgets depleted.

Weakness in sectors like tech and restrained hiring in much of the rest of corporate America has made for a maddening search in the years since hiring has cooled from its pandemic-era sizzle, several job seekers told BI.

One reason it’s become harder is that even though layoffs remain tepid and the unemployment rate is low, the number of job openings in the US has fallen back to levels not seen since early 2021.

“If you’re looking to find a job right now, it’s much tougher than it was two years ago,” Nick Bunker, the director of North American economic research at Indeed, told BI.

No one needs to tell that to those hunting for a role. Besides bogus jobs, there are interview cycles that can stretch into the double digits and the widespread risk of applying and then getting ghosted. It often adds up to a punishing search.

“It’s going to take longer than it has in the recent past to actually get a job or make a hire because of the economy cooling off,” Bunker said.

Jason Henninger, a managing director at Heller Search, a recruiting firm focused on the tech industry, told BI that the job search can be even more confounding because many employers are worried about taking on too many people but still sometimes list jobs to trawl for résumés.

“We’re in a market right now that’s very cautious and conservative,” he said. “That company may have a need, and they’re posting to see what they can get, but they maybe don’t have the budget or the final approval to actually hire that person until maybe next year.”

Those instances — where job seekers apply only to hear bupkis — can give “false hope,” he said.

1,000 applications

For his part, Jolles is hopeful that the move to Georgia will reboot his fortunes and allow him to find something, even if it’s outside tech.

“Wherever you go, they seem to be hiring,” he said.

In any case, Jolles, who describes himself as an “older” tech worker, felt depleted by the job search in California. He determined that tech companies wouldn’t ramp up hiring fast enough to let him hang on there.

“All of them are saying, ‘Well, we overhired during Covid. Now it’s a market correction, and AI is coming along, and maybe we don’t need this,'” Jolles said.

Those are some of the headwinds he said he would face when he sat down at his computer to apply for jobs. To do it right, he said, requires devoting at least four or five hours a day to the task.

Jolles has taken classes — boot camps, in the jocular parlance of tech — in data analytics and data visualization to add shine to his applications. And he’s tried artificial intelligence tools designed to match a person’s résumé to a job description.

“Complete waste of time and money,” Jolles said.

Now, after he’d “slacked off” for a few months on the search while earning his latest certifications, he’s preparing to jump back into the hunt in his new home.

170 applications

A few years ago, Jenitta Averett took a buyout from UPS after 14 years at the shipping giant’s headquarters in Atlanta, where she mostly worked in HR. Averett, 46, and her husband then moved to Hampton, Virginia, to be closer to family. She then landed a role as director of HR at a small company. In August, after three years, Averett lost her job.

“It was a bittersweet moment,” she said. Averett believed the position wasn’t a good fit for her, but she also knew from her experience in HR how tough a job search could be.

Averett hopes to find a new role in HR before her severance runs out in late October. To that end, she’s put in more than 170 applications, mostly through LinkedIn. She tracks her progress in a spreadsheet and, by its count, has had five interviews.

Some have gone well. With one role, where Averett made it to a late round, the recruiter told her during her initial interview that, no matter what, he’d contact her and give feedback at the end of the process. When he scheduled a call with her alone — and not with the next person she was supposed to meet — Averett knew she was out of the running. Yet she appreciated the feedback.

“Most of them don’t do that,” Averett said.

Far more often, she said, there’s no reason given. The bad news sometimes shows up on her phone as an automated email — one she doesn’t even have to open to know it’s a rejection.

“That’s the thing, I think, that’s the most frustrating,” she said. “‘Here comes another email.'”

Yet, even though it’s not easy, getting that rejection can be better than not hearing anything. The non-response has been the main one she’s encountered. As someone who works in HR, she gets what it’s like to be inundated with applications from job seekers like her.

“Being in HR, I understand,” she said, adding, “But it’s different when you’re in the situation.”

2,200 applications

Kevin Cash, a Navy veteran with an MBA, has been looking for a job since getting laid off in November 2022 after the small consulting firm where he’d only worked six months was acquired.

In recent months, Cash has been driving for Uber and snagging odd jobs on Taskrabbit. He never expected that finding a new role would take so long. After all, he has five degrees, did electrical work in his Navy years, and later held a job in semiconductor manufacturing.

Since getting laid off, he told BI that, based on the spreadsheet he uses to track his efforts, he’s applied for 2,181 positions. He now suspects that a chunk of those weren’t legit.

“I’ve spent a solid 12 ½ days applying to jobs that never existed,” he told BI.

Cash’s primary career focus has been business intelligence. But, now, as he drives people near his home outside Portland, Oregon, he’s trying to network — sometimes in his car that he estimates he’s put 20,000 miles on in only a few months. Those conversations, and some passengers’ incredulity that someone with his education and experience could be hard up for work, have produced a few promising leads but no jobs.

Cash said that by a couple of months ago, he’d burned through his savings.

“It all ran out — like completely broke — starting over from scratch at 43 years old,” he said.

Since then, the single dad has been scraping by, trying to shield his daughter from the dark financial picture by providing back-to-school clothes and making the rent, which is nearly $3,000 a month.

Given how fruitless his job search has been, Cash plans to soon give it up.

“When I hit 2,200, I’m just going to stop applying to jobs,” he said. “I just don’t have it in me.”