THE JOB MARKET SUCKS

I want to preface this piece with two statements. The first is; that this is based mostly on my experience in searching for a job and although I draw examples from some other people and official statistics this is my story, if you can relate to it, know that I empathise with you. The second being; that if you know of anyone who is currently job hunting, give them a deep and long embrace and if you want to go a step further, squeeze a little $100 into their hands.

The job market usually pendulum swings between an Employer’s Market, and an Employee’s Market. Pre-pandemic, Pandemic and Post-Pandemic times were examples of times when it was an Employee market, and the pendulum began swinging to an Employer’s market around early 2023.

An Employee’s market would be described as a market whereby the Employee holds all the cards, during this time a candidate would have multiple companies fighting for them and offering pay rises of 20–40% over asking in order to steal talent. Furthermore, in order to attract talent companies would offer generous benefits such as free lunches, free transportation to and from work, an on-site gym, free laundry services, free on-site massage, yoga and therapy sessions, 100% remote working capabilities. It sparked the rise of “Day in the Life videos” on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube which showed what people did in the day as employees of these companies, which consisted of very little work and a lot of expressing the perks of these companies. FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google) companies were the companies that everyone wanted to work at, and they were hiring a lot too, in 2021 they alone hired 250,000 which was a 44% increase from the year before. There was a talent shortage. This sparked the rise of people who worked two full-time jobs. However, businesses did not like seeing the prosperity of the people and started influencing the media to push false narratives and buzzwords such as quiet quitting, Rage applying, productive paranoia, Bare minimum Monday etc. Ideally, it is a non-issue but businesses made a mountain out of a molehill with it. Quiet Quitting for example is when the employee does their job to the standard that the job description dictates and the reason it is an issue is that businesses want employees to go above and beyond, for free while reaping the profits from the work done. Now there is a need to go above and beyond for the company you work for but I also believe in fair compensation for that work done plus, it should be the exception and not the norm. This market peaked at what was dubbed The Great Resignation, this term was coined by Anthony Klotz an associate professor of management at Texas A&M University. Employees across multiple sectors came to the realisation that they weren’t happy with their jobs during the pandemic. People weren’t satisfied with their work environment, the industry they were in or their work-life balance and left their jobs. The Great Resignation isn’t just a hypothetical idea; it’s an economic movement backed up by statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Between April 2021 through April 2022, 71.6 million people separated from their jobs, which averaged 3.98 million people quitting each month. In November 2021, the level of quits reached a new peak of 4.5 million Americans.

All of this peaked when Australia’s wealthiest man, Tim Gurner during a property summit in Sydney said “People decided they didn’t want to work too much any more through Covid-19, and that has had a massive issue on productivity… They have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years, and we need to see that change, We’ve got to kill that attitude,” the 41-year-old added. “We need to see pain in the economy.” He said the pandemic changed employees’ attitudes and work ethic for the worse.“There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them,” he said. “We need to remind people they work for the employer, not the other way around.” Even though he backtracked, his sentiments remain the same. Thus began the somewhat slow movement of the pendulum back to the Employee Market we are in today, the worst that there has ever been. It started slowly with Quiet Firing which occurs when when managers neglect or mistreat employees, eventually causing them to quit their jobs. Employees who are victims of quiet firing might find themselves passed over for promotions or pay rises, or left out of important meetings and discussions. In essence, the employee was Iced-Out and is given no other option but to resign. In addition to that there have been layoffs, the growth companies have opted for a leaner workforce. In the tech space alone there were 259,510 layoffs in total according to TechCrunch and in the first quarter of 2024 alone there have been 257,254 job cuts.

Unreasonable Hoops Job Seekers Jump Through

The laws of supply and demand, coupled with the oversupply of workers have made this an Employer’s Market and it is the worst is has ever been. This has given employers the gumption to be the most unreasonable they have ever been. When applying, employers have begun using AI in order to categorise applications that come in between the acceptance and reject piles. When an application is made then there Applicant Tracking System that compares the keywords on the Job description to the words on the Applicants CV to see if they would be a good fit for the role before passing the candidate to a human HR person to review and only then would they be contacted. Companies have complained of candidates using AI to better align their CVs to the job description while using AI to categorise their applicants. Furthermore, just applying for jobs, guarantees you a lesser probability of getting an interview, in essence applying is no longer the first step of the job hunt. The new first step after you apply is to reach out to people within the company on LinkedIn who have a similar background to yours such as going to the same university or having a mutual friend to make a personal internal referral for you alternatively, you find the hiring manager on LinkedIn and ask for a 15-minute chat to discuss the role, the company and how you fit in, in essence you schedule the interview rather than the other way around. These alone barely get your foot in the door for an interview, remember, you’re going against an oversaturated and incredibly competitive market and having two degrees from respected universities is just not enough. You also have to pay for and take external courses with certificates, I currently have 6; Client Account Management, Investment Banking, AML and Risk Assessment, Financial Analysis, Data Analytics, Microsoft Excel and Compliance Monitoring. I am also currently undergoing a course in “AN Introduction to Cybersecurity.” It gets worse, in order to stand out further, you have to build a personal brand and be an influencer on LinkedIn in your chosen field, I post a lot about compliance and I am trying to be one now in that space. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. Some people have gone further ahead to make CV-like videos and indulge in other extracurricular activities such as creating a finance newsletter.

Redefining the Word Entry Level

It also must be stated that job postings have become extremely ludicrous. There has been a rise of parody videos making jest of the fact that the meaning of Entry Level has changed in the past few years. Prior to 2024 Entry Level meant no experience was required for the role, you would be trained on-site, you only need a degree in the relative field and then possess a few soft skills. Now Entry Level means 2–8 years of direct experience, a PhD, and being the CEO of a startup too. What is incredible is that the businesses still pay entry-level salaries even though they want senior staff. What is worse is the fact that even more senior people are applying for these entry-level and junior roles just in order to live and keep a roof over their heads. Coupled with the fact that employees, even though they have conducted rounds of layoffs would question and not employ in some cases candidates who have the skills but have moved jobs “frequently.”

External Recruiters:

It must be stated that the majority of the recruiters that I have come in contact with are probably not seeing the pearly gates of heaven. Recruiters are people who companies go to to source for and find candidates and the recruiter takes a fee which is usually a percentage of the candidates’ base salary. The problem with external recruiters is that you are not a person to them, you’re a KPI data point, a means to an end for them. Their standard M.O. is to reach out to you about the role and ask preliminary questions which mainly revolve about discussing the salary and explaining the employer, they then begin to sell you the sun, moon and stars and get you incredibly excited about the role. I have personally been told by a recruiter “I understand you have been searching for a role, I want you to thank your lucky stars your CV came across my desk, consider your search over and this job yours” only to be completely ghosted, and having no response after repeated attempts at calls, emails and texts. I find myself stopping the recruiter halfway through their sales pitch of the role and bringing the conversation back to the most important information. They would sell you dreams and you would never hear from them again, and even if you reach out to them, they would read and not respond. They are not the decision maker and if they do not get you to have an interview, they do not give you the curtsey of informing you that you were not selected.

On the topic of “Ghosting” many people would have 3–5 rounds of interviews, which include written assessments and panel interviews, only to not respond to you about the outcome of said interview. I have witnessed going through 4 rounds of interviews and having to follow up with the company multiple times to get an automatic rejection email with no sort of feedback as to why I was not selected.

Furthermore, I like thousands of other job seekers in the UK, Canada, America and other countries have to navigate this cesspool of job hunting while having it in the back of my mind that we are on borrowed time. I, like thousands of others, am on a graduate visa, which is a visa issued after the completion of your Master or PhD degree programme that gives you between 2–3 years to find work and be eligible for work until a company sponsors your visa and then you move into the Skilled Worker visa. That mental clock is what makes this particular job hunt even more tricky. If not for this clock, I would have gone into contracting full-time or started a business or a hundred thousand other things that would generate honest revenue.

I cannot understate the mental toll this has taken on me, I’ve lost count of the number of sleepless nights I have, and I have stopped talking about it all together with anyone because to me it’s much more than just a job hunt for me, it is the basis of my ability to remain in this country. I am not seeking sympathy, it does nothing for me, I need solutions and advice on things I have yet to do. I am exhausted from discussing the issue with multiple people who, although they have good intentions offer me solutions I have already implemented. I also am tired of explaining at length my entire situation so I wrote this to exhaustively explain my situation so I can use it as a referral point in discussions, my CV is on its 3rd version this year alone, I have a Masters degree, I am a qualified lawyer, and I have helped startups raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, I have built and sold businesses, I have multiple certificates. I learned and am still learning how to build a media organisation from scratch. What more do I have to do? [Reuters]