Modern job hunting is a paradox. It’s the only time in your career when professional collaboration is either discouraged or locked behind paywalls for career coaches, resume writers, or AI chatbots. Sharing your experiences in the current job market often leads to sympathy, but seldom results in collective action—just more explanations for why things can't be changed.
But why is this approach to organizing hiring considered economically beneficial? How does it serve us?
In reality, excluding job seekers from professional communities has severe financial repercussions for the broader workforce.
A 2021 Harvard Business School article, 'Hidden Workers, Untapped Talent,' revealed that 27.4 million Americans are overlooked in hiring. A 2023 Yahoo News article reported that the U.S. economy loses $1.08 trillion each month due to unfilled positions—a figure expected to grow. Beyond these statistics, consider the impact on local tax revenues, WIC and Food Stamp funds, marriages, homelessness, and the struggles of small businesses due to job seekers spending excessive time applying.
Treating U.S. job seekers like buffalo on the Great Plains is devastating for everyone involved, and anyone critically examining this issue knows it.
The internet has made it easier to distance ourselves from the impact of our actions—whether it’s ghosting job seekers, failing to respond to events, or behaving inappropriately during the hiring process. It’s a lot easier to ignore this issue when there’s never been a tradition of employers or recruiters being held accountable for their actions. And the more we normalize behaviors that hurt people, the easier it becomes to keep doing it. Jesse Rothstein’s article on The Lost Generation is a prime example, as well as "Out of Work and Into School: Labor Market Policies and College Enrollment During the Great Recession" and "Paying to Avoid Recession: Using Reenlistment to Estimate the Cost of Unemployment".
The list goes on. Declining societal support for understanding the impact of today’s labor market on U.S. job seekers has led even talent leaders and Michigan Talent Works to believe in 2023 that struggling job seekers might need to submit 75 resumes—or perhaps 85—at MOST to land a job. This feedback loop has become so normalized that we’ve entirely lost all access what modern job searching really entails by being so profoundly out of touch with the U.S. job seeker.
At best it's up to 2000 resumes to get a job these days. I've heard at least 50 resumes a week even to get an interview with almost a guarantee of getting ghosted.
We overlook this disconnection from reality because only 1% of people involved in job searching control 100% of the respected dialogue on modern hiring. (There are fewer than 1 million HR professionals in the U.S., while about half of U.S. professionals—roughly 80 million—are job searching at any given time.)
This disconnect leads to multiple layers of harm. Today’s job seekers lack the societal support that previous generations relied on. They don’t know:
Which job postings are genuine
Whether to apply once for a remote job or multiple times for different locations
Where to apply—LinkedIn, Indeed, the company website, or elsewhere
What an applicant tracking system (ATS) is and which one they’re using
What fonts and language work best, considering the vocabulary limitations of various ATS systems
Whether the recruiter is a company employee or a third-party actor
The potential impact of connecting with recruiters on LinkedIn
The decision fatigue of modern job seeking, compounded by isolation and lack of feedback, has normalized a level of professional trauma that we rarely acknowledge.
The only people who believe the current job market is working are those who aren’t using it.
How does this benefit any of us?
The answer isn’t more tech or resignation—it’s connection and community. At The Job Applicant Perspective, we aim to be a 'Blind for Business'—but for job seekers. We’re here to foster connection and respect for the intelligence, work ethic, and resilience of U.S. professionals—your fellow American citizens.