I certainly miss the way we did it 20 years ago. The recruiter would print out the CVs, and my team would get lunch and we'd each take a stack of CVs and give it a review for fit. If it looked...
I certainly miss the way we did it 20 years ago. The recruiter would print out the CVs, and my team would get lunch and we'd each take a stack of CVs and give it a review for fit. If it looked interestingly or might be a good fit we'd put in one pile. If it was a no, we put it in another pile. We'd swap no piles for a second check. The yes pile got their phone screens, and the no got a sorry letter.
Sad how we're apparently more productive than ever but the processes for gaining said productive employees has just gone down the shoot. With no one interested in even going downstairs to check on...
Sad how we're apparently more productive than ever but the processes for gaining said productive employees has just gone down the shoot. With no one interested in even going downstairs to check on it.
We're probably never going to get this again, but at the very least I feel some hiring manager should be involved in checking what HR puts on these post sites. It's shocking how often I've gone to an interview and the duties/tech needed were completely different from the job ad. In more extreme cases, the team may not even be aware a role was posted to begin with.
It's weird how we have all these stages these days to vest a candidate and they may not have ever viewed your resume until minutes before. Modern companies treat interviewing as an afterthought, despite it determining what people those workers will be with in the near future.
I've had the same experience a few times. Sometimes I can already catch it in the vacancy due to the vagueness of it, lack of tangible hard skills described and more. In Dutch we have a word...
We're probably never going to get this again, but at the very least I feel some hiring manager should be involved in checking what HR puts on these post sites. It's shocking how often I've gone to an interview and the duties/tech needed were completely different from the job ad. In more extreme cases, the team may not even be aware a role was posted to begin with.
I've had the same experience a few times. Sometimes I can already catch it in the vacancy due to the vagueness of it, lack of tangible hard skills described and more.
In Dutch we have a word called 'bezigheidstherapie' which roughly translates to 'keeping busy therapy' - which does have some medical history, but is mostly used in the context of people just being busy with needless, useless things.
When I look at how much useless posturing, administrative work, meetings and more occurs in our society, the more I really wonder how we can accept this. It's a waste of time, money, resources, and sometimes even our mental well being.
Yeah, it used to be hiring was viewed as an important task, with a lot of effort by management and team members. Now it seems like something people try to offload, especially management.
Yeah, it used to be hiring was viewed as an important task, with a lot of effort by management and team members. Now it seems like something people try to offload, especially management.
The company I work for is fairly small, and they will only advertise job openings online as an absolute last resort. They try every other avenue that they can first because then they get a...
The company I work for is fairly small, and they will only advertise job openings online as an absolute last resort. They try every other avenue that they can first because then they get a manageable number of responses — and all the applicants are legitimate. When they post an opening online, they get flooded with what is essentially spam, and it's very hard work to comb through it all and find the odd genuine candidate.
It really seems like the online job market is broken, for both both (genuine) employees and (genuine) employers. There is way, way too much noise to comb through for anyone who is actually trying to hire or be hired.
You can always tell when you get to the "Where did you hear about us section" and never find Indeed listed that something is up. Hilarious to hear though - it's always been about who you know at...
You can always tell when you get to the "Where did you hear about us section" and never find Indeed listed that something is up. Hilarious to hear though - it's always been about who you know at the end of the day.
Having looked for a job for... God, more than a year now, I feel both validated and angry at this. More than anything though, it makes me wonder how long it will take until we do something about...
Having looked for a job for... God, more than a year now, I feel both validated and angry at this.
More than anything though, it makes me wonder how long it will take until we do something about this because quite frankly, this sets us up for so much wasted time and effort that I genuinely wonder how much it costs our economies.
And unfortunately I doubt that much will happen until we realize it drains our wallet.
Neither I nor anyone I know has successfully gotten a good job off of the internet since the pandemic. It's always social networks, a friend of a friend, poaching from another business that saw...
Neither I nor anyone I know has successfully gotten a good job off of the internet since the pandemic. It's always social networks, a friend of a friend, poaching from another business that saw your work, internal promotion, some situation where there's a personal connection or an opportunity to see you in action. Sometimes recruiters reach out, but it's clearly AI trash. I've got a spreadsheet of all the jobs I've applied for off and on in the last 4 years, and it's past 200 positions with about a 2% response rate. It's soul crushing, and frankly, the idea of walking into a business and setting down a paper resume is starting to make sense again. At least it proves you're an actual local person and willing to show up at their place of business.
The problem is that virtually no one will even let you do this anymore. Even when I was applying to retail jobs 15+ years ago, when I tried to do that, 7/10 times I was told "Oh sorry you need to...
The problem is that virtually no one will even let you do this anymore. Even when I was applying to retail jobs 15+ years ago, when I tried to do that, 7/10 times I was told "Oh sorry you need to apply on our website"
Sure, but even then that was a 30% chance of them accepting your resume, and a 100% chance of you knowing the result of your attempt. Those numbers are glorious as compared to the current...
Sure, but even then that was a 30% chance of them accepting your resume, and a 100% chance of you knowing the result of your attempt. Those numbers are glorious as compared to the current experience of applying online.
I didn't try it enough to make anything close to a statistical analysis, but my response rate when I tried that at 16 was 0%. Then again, it was 2008, so I didn't truly realize how god-awful the...
but even then that was a 30% chance of them accepting your resume
I didn't try it enough to make anything close to a statistical analysis, but my response rate when I tried that at 16 was 0%. Then again, it was 2008, so I didn't truly realize how god-awful the situation was to begin with. I think you need to be in a really small town to pull that off, or have a very desirable skill. Maybe these days I could do that in my subrurb for IT, but still not a certainty.
as for me, 2022 was not "easy", but it did feel like I was getting genuine interviews from people who needed to fill an actual role. 3 roles I went to nearly the end with (before accepting another offer) reached out to me.
I concur that 2023-2024 has been a a circus of ghosts, random rejections, sudden layoffs/hiring freezes/shutdowns, and plain ol' disrespect. The whole 9 yards of recruiting hell. And fwiw I haven't had a physical on-site interview since pre-pandemic either. I sure would like to see some humans for once.
Eons ago when I worked as a cashier, we would get a lot of resume from walk ins. They go in a stack and we pass them to the store owner who then picks and calls when they need someone. Might as...
Eons ago when I worked as a cashier, we would get a lot of resume from walk ins. They go in a stack and we pass them to the store owner who then picks and calls when they need someone. Might as well be a lottery, and definitely do not hear back either way for maybe 6+ months, based on how frequently they actually hire anyone from outside of their own social network.
I think the endgame of this is that one side of the arms race will be made up of corporations with the infrastructure to get your CV through the many spam filters and such, at high enough volume...
This is the Singularity of the online job market, the point at which AI growth has become so exponential that humans can’t compete. It is a war against and between the machines, not in the streets and skies but on our desks and in our pockets. And it may kill off the very notion of finding jobs via the internet — permanently.
I think the endgame of this is that one side of the arms race will be made up of corporations with the infrastructure to get your CV through the many spam filters and such, at high enough volume that one or two per day are likely to be actual jobs that are actually hiring, all for a price, and nobody else will have a hope of getting through. The very concept of job hunting will basically be paywalled. The only exception will be, as always, people who can bypass this step of the process by having friends in the right places.
Would you be willing to disclose the price range for this service? If someone really need a job, maybe a couple hundred seems doable, but if it's say, thousand plus, then that might be too big of...
Would you be willing to disclose the price range for this service? If someone really need a job, maybe a couple hundred seems doable, but if it's say, thousand plus, then that might be too big of a hurdle for many
I and the person I worked with are based in California although we did everything via zoom and there is not reason they couldn't be hired from elsewhere. From their website LinkedIn Profile...
I and the person I worked with are based in California although we did everything via zoom and there is not reason they couldn't be hired from elsewhere.
From their website
LinkedIn Profile Critique – $175 – includes a video critique of your profile and supporting tools for you to make suggested updates and changes to improve visibility & impact.
$600 a complete LinkedIn solution that includes profile writing, custom branding, SEO tips, job search training, networking how-to’s, and a security & settings overview
This three 1:1 session package includes:
A review of your current profile with detailed instructions for updates and done for you custom verbiage for your headline, about me/summary, professional experience, and skills.
A coaching & training session covering job search tips, effective networking tactics, and a review of your settings to make the most of your LinkedIn strategy.
A recorded critique of your profile after your edits and changes are complete.
Multiple tools, guides, and worksheets to leverage your strategy for job search or career branding.
That's quite pricey.....But your results speak for themselves. Do these calls represent actual honest to goodness currently hiring jobs? Are the purposes of these calls to bring specifically you...
That's quite pricey.....But your results speak for themselves.
Do these calls represent actual honest to goodness currently hiring jobs? Are the purposes of these calls to bring specifically you to their client companies for an interview, or are they generic "hey you might be interested apply here"? Because if they're as good as in person interviews for real jobs that's very impressive and worth the quite high ticket price.
I wonder how it works, is it the SEO? Something about LinkedIn algorithms that prioritizes your profile, and then because now it looks perfect and streamlined, the human eyeballs are then wow'd by your skills to give you a call.
Do the consultants for this service personally pass your profile to their other clients who are looking? Like, is there a little network that now has your name in the hat for 'we checked out this guy he's a quality hire'.
Lots of questions, just musing out loud, thank you so much for sharing already and please don't feel pressured to answer :)
The calls are from recruiters about actual jobs. I mentioned that I am in California because it is a high cost of living state and the cost of services tends to be higher.
The calls are from recruiters about actual jobs.
I mentioned that I am in California because it is a high cost of living state and the cost of services tends to be higher.
Impressive. Many thanks again for sharing, hopefully I won't need it for a bit but that's the route I'm going to have to take when I do, it feels like.
Impressive. Many thanks again for sharing, hopefully I won't need it for a bit but that's the route I'm going to have to take when I do, it feels like.
The author fails to connect the dots between these two critical facts. and yet fails to understand Apologies to those who are currently seeking work, but the fact is when unemployment is this low,...
The author fails to connect the dots between these two critical facts.
The Commerce Department announced in February of 2023 that “Unemployment is at its lowest level in 54 years.” When this April’s official numbers showed that the U.S. recorded its 27th straight month of sub-4% unemployment, tying the second-longest streak since World War II, the Center for Economic and Policy Research was but one of a multitude of sources celebrating: “This matches the streak from November 1967 to January 1970, often viewed as one of the most prosperous stretches in US history.” In June, Investopedia practically gushed that “U.S. workers are in the midst of one of the best job markets in history. They haven’t had this much job security since the 1960s, and haven’t seen a longer stretch of low unemployment since the early 1950s.”
and
Moreover, broad-based statistics confirm the anecdotal messages: Finding work is becoming much more difficult, a trend that started at least as early as 2023, when the average “time-to-hire” across all sectors reached a record high of 44 days. LinkedIn reported in March that hiring on its platform was down almost 10% over the previous year. Pantheon Macroeconomics economist Oliver Allen says that shifts in small business payrolls imply overall private sector job growth “dropping to zero over the next few months.”
yet fails to understand
While those criticisms may well be accurate for a certain number of anecdotal examples, anybody who searches for more such examples will never, ever run out. They can’t all have jumbled résumés. They can’t all need interview coaching.
Apologies to those who are currently seeking work, but the fact is when unemployment is this low, the average quality of whoever's left still somehow unemployed is correspondingly low. Sure, there are going to be exceptions to the rule, but for the most part at sub-4% unemployment, if someone doesn't already have a job then there's probably a reason for that.
I'm at least assuming that they want a better job than they have right now. And that’s how it works — most people complaining about how long it is taking them to find a job are in fact unemployed....
I'm at least assuming that they want a better job than they have right now. And that’s how it works — most people complaining about how long it is taking them to find a job are in fact unemployed. People looking to trade up aren’t the ones worrying about this.
You fell for a similar trap to the author and didn't take into account underemployment. That's the real damning thing about the market right now. There are in fact less full time jobs than last...
most people complaining about how long it is taking them to find a job are in fact unemployed.
You fell for a similar trap to the author and didn't take into account underemployment. That's the real damning thing about the market right now.
There are in fact less full time jobs than last year. But statistics hide it by showing that part time and gig employment has increased. So it gives the impression that unemployment is low, despite the fact that many people's quality of life has plummeted. That's where this divide between "the economy" and "the people" come from.
So yes, people wanting to "trade up" can still be working but worried. So I wouldn't discount the entire market right now as "low quality". The jobs simply aren't there, the ones that are (which is hospitality and nursing, based on those labor numbers from last quarter) are cutting hours or even pay. But it's an election year in the US and this is the worst time to admit that.
As a disclosure, I am in fact in the same situation. I have enough cash flow to just barely pay rent and expenses but I only work 20 hours a week (and honestly, it's a small miracle how I obtained that job to begin with). I wouldn't be registered as unemployed as a result, but I am in fact trying to "trade up" (or rather, I'll just take 2 jobs at this point and not tell the FT job).
As u/stu2b50 points out, there are different measures of unemployment that can capture what you're talking about. Here's a look at U-6 unemployment rates over time. It's currently at 7.4%, which...
But statistics hide it by showing that part time and gig employment has increased. So it gives the impression that unemployment is low, despite the fact that many people's quality of life has plummeted. That's where this divide between "the economy" and "the people" come from.
Having said all of that, my favorite podcast did an episode recently on the disconnect between these statistics and consumer sentiment. It's not about underemployment per se but about the generally negative feeling a lot of Americans have with the economy despite the aforementioned statistics (and those like them) that would make that negative sentiment surprising.
There’s something weird happening with the economy. On a personal level, most Americans say they’re doing pretty well right now. And according to the data, that’s true. Wages have gone up faster than inflation. Unemployment is low, the stock market is generally up so far this year, and people are buying more stuff.
And yet in surveys, people keep saying the economy is bad. A recent Harris poll for The Guardian found that around half of Americans think the S. & P. 500 is down this year, and that unemployment is at a 50-year high. Fifty-six percent think we’re in a recession.
There are many theories about why this gap exists. Maybe political polarization is warping how people see the economy or it’s a failure of President Biden’s messaging, or there’s just something uniquely painful about inflation. And while there’s truth in all of these, it felt like a piece of the story was missing.
And for me, that missing piece was an article I read right before the pandemic. An Atlantic story from February 2020 called “The Great Affordability Crisis Breaking America.” It described how some of Americans’ biggest-ticket expenses — housing, health care, higher education and child care — which were already pricey, had been getting steadily pricier for decades.
At the time, prices weren’t the big topic in the economy; the focus was more on jobs and wages. So it was easier for this trend to slip notice, like a frog boiling in water, quietly, putting more and more strain on American budgets. But today, after years of high inflation, prices are the biggest topic in the economy. And I think that explains the anger people feel: They’re noticing the price of things all the time, and getting hammered with the reality of how expensive these things have become.
This part seems particularly apt and is a sort of TL;DL are.
This entire time, this cost of living crisis is also brewing. And you can even date it somewhat earlier, but I think probably, the aughts are a good place to start it, where the cost of — I identify four things, but there are probably five. These are costs that are big and are sticky, and that you are not transacting frequently. And the four things are health care, child care, higher ed, so higher ed debt, and then housing. And the cost of all four of those things becomes really, really brutal, not just for low income Americans, but middle income, and in some cases, even upper-middle income Americans.
And it really changes our relationship to the economy. And it sneaks up on us again because we’re in this circumstance in which the primary issue is wages and low demand.
ezra klein
You said there was a fifth that you would have included if you’d gone back. What was number five?
annie lowrey
Elder care, which is a really, really big issue and has some of the same pressures as child care in terms of wages and accessibility. This is actually becoming a bigger issue as the American population ages.
U-6 still doesn't cover all of the factors of gig work making below minimum wage, so it's still not telling the full story. But yes, expenses going up is a big factor in this bad feeling. Not...
U-6 still doesn't cover all of the factors of gig work making below minimum wage, so it's still not telling the full story.
But yes, expenses going up is a big factor in this bad feeling. Not necessarily under talked about (how long has "the rent is too damn high" been a meme for again? a decade?), but probably still understated for its impact. if you make 20% more but rent increases by 50%, then you will be struggling. But the economy looks great because rich people are buying all the houses. Double whammy.
Add that with some sectors being hit hard by a mix of layoffs, outsourcing, and this article's circus of an interviewing gauntlet, and you are inevitably getting bad sentiments from the working class.
Don't the US unemployment statistics only take into account people actively searching for a job? If you're not employed and not looking for a job, you're not part of the unemployment pool. NE(ET)s...
Don't the US unemployment statistics only take into account people actively searching for a job? If you're not employed and not looking for a job, you're not part of the unemployment pool.
NE(ET)s seem to be growing as a group, which would not be reflected in the unemployment.
As far as I can see, nothing that you've linked says that it's only the unemployed who are having trouble finding new jobs. Where are you getting that from?
As far as I can see, nothing that you've linked says that it's only the unemployed who are having trouble finding new jobs. Where are you getting that from?
Could use some harder numbers on how many are unemployed vs how many are underemployed there. That's not at all my understanding of the situation either, nor my experience...
Could use some harder numbers on how many are unemployed vs how many are underemployed there. That's not at all my understanding of the situation either, nor my experience...
The problem is that the unemployed number will always only be the people who are (still) receiving unemployment. There will always be too many who don't get it anymore because their UI ran out and...
The problem is that the unemployed number will always only be the people who are (still) receiving unemployment. There will always be too many who don't get it anymore because their UI ran out and are no longer counted as unemployed. They just fall through the cracks.
The BLS derives its unemployment data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, which interviews about 60,000 people each month (and not, as is sometimes supposed, by counting how many people drew unemployment benefits). The CPS covers the entire civilian non-institutional population ages 16 and older, including self-employed people; prison inmates, residents of mental facilities and homes for the aged, and active-duty military personnel are excluded. (A separate survey of 146,000 private- and public-sector employers produces the monthly nonfarm-payroll numbers.)
It is important to know how the number is arrived at and this is a good primer. It's also important to note that, generally, the unemployment number captures those without a job who are actively...
It is important to know how the number is arrived at and this is a good primer. It's also important to note that, generally, the unemployment number captures those without a job who are actively looking for a job. So, it's not capturing based on UI benefits but it is possible to not be captured in the (generally used, as BLS captures a bunch of different numbers) unemployment number by being unemployed AND giving up on looking for a job.
As kind of a ponderous note: I am interested if there is a meaningful correlation between unemployment numbers and UI claims. First blush, I would think possibly but I can also see the correlation being between a third variable. Guess I have some research to look into tonight.
That's also not true. While it's common simplified into "the unemployment rate", the BLS actually reports 6 different metrics for unemployment, with as much granularity as you'd want. They are...
generally, the unemployment number captures those without a job who are actively looking for a job
That's also not true. While it's common simplified into "the unemployment rate", the BLS actually reports 6 different metrics for unemployment, with as much granularity as you'd want. They are labeled U1 to U6.
U-1: The percentage of people unemployed for 15 weeks or more
U-2: The percentage of people who lost their jobs and anyone who finished a temporary job
U-3: The percentage of people who are jobless but actively searching for a job
U-4: The total number of unemployed people, plus discouraged workers
U-5: The total number of unemployed people, discouraged workers, and other marginally attached workers
U-6: Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force
Of particular interest to you, then, is U-4 to U-6, which gets increasingly broad in its definition of "unemployed". U-4 includes discouraged workers, that is not actively searching, and by the time you get to U6 you also include part time workers and marginal workers as "unemployed".
I guess I should have been more specific in my language. I was trying to point out, as I think you are, that what is commonly reported in media as the unemployment rate is actually only a...
I guess I should have been more specific in my language. I was trying to point out, as I think you are, that what is commonly reported in media as the unemployment rate is actually only a unemployment rate. And that Habituallytired and others might be interested in looking at the other numbers as well, since they were interested in who might not be captured in a specific set.
I haven't looked too deep into it, but the economist I work with keeps an eye on UI benefits as a leading indicator for unemployment. Generally as an indicator that a particular region is...
As kind of a ponderous note: I am interested if there is a meaningful correlation between unemployment numbers and UI claims.
I haven't looked too deep into it, but the economist I work with keeps an eye on UI benefits as a leading indicator for unemployment. Generally as an indicator that a particular region is important to watch.
I certainly miss the way we did it 20 years ago. The recruiter would print out the CVs, and my team would get lunch and we'd each take a stack of CVs and give it a review for fit. If it looked interestingly or might be a good fit we'd put in one pile. If it was a no, we put it in another pile. We'd swap no piles for a second check. The yes pile got their phone screens, and the no got a sorry letter.
Sad how we're apparently more productive than ever but the processes for gaining said productive employees has just gone down the shoot. With no one interested in even going downstairs to check on it.
We're probably never going to get this again, but at the very least I feel some hiring manager should be involved in checking what HR puts on these post sites. It's shocking how often I've gone to an interview and the duties/tech needed were completely different from the job ad. In more extreme cases, the team may not even be aware a role was posted to begin with.
It's weird how we have all these stages these days to vest a candidate and they may not have ever viewed your resume until minutes before. Modern companies treat interviewing as an afterthought, despite it determining what people those workers will be with in the near future.
I've had the same experience a few times. Sometimes I can already catch it in the vacancy due to the vagueness of it, lack of tangible hard skills described and more.
In Dutch we have a word called 'bezigheidstherapie' which roughly translates to 'keeping busy therapy' - which does have some medical history, but is mostly used in the context of people just being busy with needless, useless things.
When I look at how much useless posturing, administrative work, meetings and more occurs in our society, the more I really wonder how we can accept this. It's a waste of time, money, resources, and sometimes even our mental well being.
Werkverschaffing may be a better fit, where you create jobs for pointless tasks just to have people do something.
Yeah, it used to be hiring was viewed as an important task, with a lot of effort by management and team members. Now it seems like something people try to offload, especially management.
The company I work for is fairly small, and they will only advertise job openings online as an absolute last resort. They try every other avenue that they can first because then they get a manageable number of responses — and all the applicants are legitimate. When they post an opening online, they get flooded with what is essentially spam, and it's very hard work to comb through it all and find the odd genuine candidate.
It really seems like the online job market is broken, for both both (genuine) employees and (genuine) employers. There is way, way too much noise to comb through for anyone who is actually trying to hire or be hired.
They usually don’t even bother with the “you didn’t get the job” letters anymore!
You can always tell when you get to the "Where did you hear about us section" and never find Indeed listed that something is up. Hilarious to hear though - it's always been about who you know at the end of the day.
Having looked for a job for... God, more than a year now, I feel both validated and angry at this.
More than anything though, it makes me wonder how long it will take until we do something about this because quite frankly, this sets us up for so much wasted time and effort that I genuinely wonder how much it costs our economies.
And unfortunately I doubt that much will happen until we realize it drains our wallet.
Neither I nor anyone I know has successfully gotten a good job off of the internet since the pandemic. It's always social networks, a friend of a friend, poaching from another business that saw your work, internal promotion, some situation where there's a personal connection or an opportunity to see you in action. Sometimes recruiters reach out, but it's clearly AI trash. I've got a spreadsheet of all the jobs I've applied for off and on in the last 4 years, and it's past 200 positions with about a 2% response rate. It's soul crushing, and frankly, the idea of walking into a business and setting down a paper resume is starting to make sense again. At least it proves you're an actual local person and willing to show up at their place of business.
The problem is that virtually no one will even let you do this anymore. Even when I was applying to retail jobs 15+ years ago, when I tried to do that, 7/10 times I was told "Oh sorry you need to apply on our website"
Sure, but even then that was a 30% chance of them accepting your resume, and a 100% chance of you knowing the result of your attempt. Those numbers are glorious as compared to the current experience of applying online.
I didn't try it enough to make anything close to a statistical analysis, but my response rate when I tried that at 16 was 0%. Then again, it was 2008, so I didn't truly realize how god-awful the situation was to begin with. I think you need to be in a really small town to pull that off, or have a very desirable skill. Maybe these days I could do that in my subrurb for IT, but still not a certainty.
as for me, 2022 was not "easy", but it did feel like I was getting genuine interviews from people who needed to fill an actual role. 3 roles I went to nearly the end with (before accepting another offer) reached out to me.
I concur that 2023-2024 has been a a circus of ghosts, random rejections, sudden layoffs/hiring freezes/shutdowns, and plain ol' disrespect. The whole 9 yards of recruiting hell. And fwiw I haven't had a physical on-site interview since pre-pandemic either. I sure would like to see some humans for once.
Eons ago when I worked as a cashier, we would get a lot of resume from walk ins. They go in a stack and we pass them to the store owner who then picks and calls when they need someone. Might as well be a lottery, and definitely do not hear back either way for maybe 6+ months, based on how frequently they actually hire anyone from outside of their own social network.
I think the endgame of this is that one side of the arms race will be made up of corporations with the infrastructure to get your CV through the many spam filters and such, at high enough volume that one or two per day are likely to be actual jobs that are actually hiring, all for a price, and nobody else will have a hope of getting through. The very concept of job hunting will basically be paywalled. The only exception will be, as always, people who can bypass this step of the process by having friends in the right places.
This is basically already happening, I've seen resume consulting and I'm sure you pay for the equivalent of resume SEO.
Six months ago I paid someone to rewrite my LinkedIn profile. I now get reasonably frequent phone calls which wasn't true before
Would you be willing to disclose the price range for this service? If someone really need a job, maybe a couple hundred seems doable, but if it's say, thousand plus, then that might be too big of a hurdle for many
I and the person I worked with are based in California although we did everything via zoom and there is not reason they couldn't be hired from elsewhere.
From their website
LinkedIn Profile Critique – $175 – includes a video critique of your profile and supporting tools for you to make suggested updates and changes to improve visibility & impact.
$600 a complete LinkedIn solution that includes profile writing, custom branding, SEO tips, job search training, networking how-to’s, and a security & settings overview
This three 1:1 session package includes:
A review of your current profile with detailed instructions for updates and done for you custom verbiage for your headline, about me/summary, professional experience, and skills.
A coaching & training session covering job search tips, effective networking tactics, and a review of your settings to make the most of your LinkedIn strategy.
A recorded critique of your profile after your edits and changes are complete.
Multiple tools, guides, and worksheets to leverage your strategy for job search or career branding.
That's quite pricey.....But your results speak for themselves.
Do these calls represent actual honest to goodness currently hiring jobs? Are the purposes of these calls to bring specifically you to their client companies for an interview, or are they generic "hey you might be interested apply here"? Because if they're as good as in person interviews for real jobs that's very impressive and worth the quite high ticket price.
I wonder how it works, is it the SEO? Something about LinkedIn algorithms that prioritizes your profile, and then because now it looks perfect and streamlined, the human eyeballs are then wow'd by your skills to give you a call.
Do the consultants for this service personally pass your profile to their other clients who are looking? Like, is there a little network that now has your name in the hat for 'we checked out this guy he's a quality hire'.
Lots of questions, just musing out loud, thank you so much for sharing already and please don't feel pressured to answer :)
The calls are from recruiters about actual jobs.
I mentioned that I am in California because it is a high cost of living state and the cost of services tends to be higher.
Impressive. Many thanks again for sharing, hopefully I won't need it for a bit but that's the route I'm going to have to take when I do, it feels like.
The author fails to connect the dots between these two critical facts.
and
yet fails to understand
Apologies to those who are currently seeking work, but the fact is when unemployment is this low, the average quality of whoever's left still somehow unemployed is correspondingly low. Sure, there are going to be exceptions to the rule, but for the most part at sub-4% unemployment, if someone doesn't already have a job then there's probably a reason for that.
You're making false assumptions of your own, primary of which is assuming that job seekers are unemployed.
I'm at least assuming that they want a better job than they have right now. And that’s how it works — most people complaining about how long it is taking them to find a job are in fact unemployed. People looking to trade up aren’t the ones worrying about this.
You fell for a similar trap to the author and didn't take into account underemployment. That's the real damning thing about the market right now.
There are in fact less full time jobs than last year. But statistics hide it by showing that part time and gig employment has increased. So it gives the impression that unemployment is low, despite the fact that many people's quality of life has plummeted. That's where this divide between "the economy" and "the people" come from.
So yes, people wanting to "trade up" can still be working but worried. So I wouldn't discount the entire market right now as "low quality". The jobs simply aren't there, the ones that are (which is hospitality and nursing, based on those labor numbers from last quarter) are cutting hours or even pay. But it's an election year in the US and this is the worst time to admit that.
As a disclosure, I am in fact in the same situation. I have enough cash flow to just barely pay rent and expenses but I only work 20 hours a week (and honestly, it's a small miracle how I obtained that job to begin with). I wouldn't be registered as unemployed as a result, but I am in fact trying to "trade up" (or rather, I'll just take 2 jobs at this point and not tell the FT job).
As u/stu2b50 points out, there are different measures of unemployment that can capture what you're talking about. Here's a look at U-6 unemployment rates over time. It's currently at 7.4%, which is quite low historically, but is definitely higher than the more often quoted U-3 rate. Real median household income is also up.
Having said all of that, my favorite podcast did an episode recently on the disconnect between these statistics and consumer sentiment. It's not about underemployment per se but about the generally negative feeling a lot of Americans have with the economy despite the aforementioned statistics (and those like them) that would make that negative sentiment surprising.
If you're interested, the episode is on YouTube, among other sources.
This part seems particularly apt and is a sort of TL;DL are.
U-6 still doesn't cover all of the factors of gig work making below minimum wage, so it's still not telling the full story.
But yes, expenses going up is a big factor in this bad feeling. Not necessarily under talked about (how long has "the rent is too damn high" been a meme for again? a decade?), but probably still understated for its impact. if you make 20% more but rent increases by 50%, then you will be struggling. But the economy looks great because rich people are buying all the houses. Double whammy.
Add that with some sectors being hit hard by a mix of layoffs, outsourcing, and this article's circus of an interviewing gauntlet, and you are inevitably getting bad sentiments from the working class.
Don't the US unemployment statistics only take into account people actively searching for a job? If you're not employed and not looking for a job, you're not part of the unemployment pool.
NE(ET)s seem to be growing as a group, which would not be reflected in the unemployment.
This comment by stu2b50 lays out the different unemployment metrics. U-3 is "the" metric, but the others are also tracked and available.
As far as I can see, nothing that you've linked says that it's only the unemployed who are having trouble finding new jobs. Where are you getting that from?
Could use some harder numbers on how many are unemployed vs how many are underemployed there. That's not at all my understanding of the situation either, nor my experience...
The problem is that the unemployed number will always only be the people who are (still) receiving unemployment. There will always be too many who don't get it anymore because their UI ran out and are no longer counted as unemployed. They just fall through the cracks.
That is not how unemployment is calculated.
It is important to know how the number is arrived at and this is a good primer. It's also important to note that, generally, the unemployment number captures those without a job who are actively looking for a job. So, it's not capturing based on UI benefits but it is possible to not be captured in the (generally used, as BLS captures a bunch of different numbers) unemployment number by being unemployed AND giving up on looking for a job.
As kind of a ponderous note: I am interested if there is a meaningful correlation between unemployment numbers and UI claims. First blush, I would think possibly but I can also see the correlation being between a third variable. Guess I have some research to look into tonight.
That's also not true. While it's common simplified into "the unemployment rate", the BLS actually reports 6 different metrics for unemployment, with as much granularity as you'd want. They are labeled U1 to U6.
Of particular interest to you, then, is U-4 to U-6, which gets increasingly broad in its definition of "unemployed". U-4 includes discouraged workers, that is not actively searching, and by the time you get to U6 you also include part time workers and marginal workers as "unemployed".
I guess I should have been more specific in my language. I was trying to point out, as I think you are, that what is commonly reported in media as the unemployment rate is actually only a unemployment rate. And that Habituallytired and others might be interested in looking at the other numbers as well, since they were interested in who might not be captured in a specific set.
I haven't looked too deep into it, but the economist I work with keeps an eye on UI benefits as a leading indicator for unemployment. Generally as an indicator that a particular region is important to watch.