Why job searches suck right now

When Michael Keach was laid off in January after five years as a senior manager in the customer-service department at Wayfair, he was tentatively optimistic. After all, Keach had been laid off before and had found work again quickly. He figured his experience at Wayfair — where hundreds of people reported to him and he launched a new communication platform — would make him a standout candidate for a new role. Plus, the broader job market seemed strong: Companies were adding hundreds of thousands of new employees. Given these prospects, Keach wasn't prepared for what happened next: He couldn't find a job. 

In March, Keach, who is 51, described his job search on LinkedIn: "I have participated in about 20 hours of interviews, have received no job offers, ghosted by recruiters and have my fair share of rejection emails," he wrote. He said the job hunt "has been one of the most mentally challenging experiences in my adult life" — more taxing than his 20-year career in the US Air Force.

Keach's experience may sound extreme, but many found it relatable. Thousands of other users shared comments commiserating with how surprisingly demoralizing they've found their own job searches. Their anecdotes, and those of the people I've spoken with, suggest the world of hiring is strange right now. Economic instability, opaque hiring processes, and the destabilizing rise of technologies like generative AI have converged into an environment where it's hard for job seekers to feel like they have even a basic sense of what is going on. 

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