Let’s Talk About Why Job Seekers Can’t Get Jobs

So while it’s never been easier to find a job, it’s never been harder to get the job.

Let me tell you what’s really going on out there.

Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow

Hold on a second. I can’t stop laughing at that section title I just wrote.

OK. OK. Quick story.

My friend “Dave” is a pretty talented young tech industry rock star. And he’s been unemployed for almost a year. Over a drink last night, he told me that his wife, who is far more pragmatic than he—in fact, she’s far more everything than he—half-jokingly suggested he get out of tech entirely and go find a job at the local golf course.

“You love golf,” she told him. “At least go do something that brings you joy.”

Oh, Helen. We’re so far beyond joy.

But I totally agree with Helen. Personally, I’ve based my entire career on doing what feels “right” to me. That philosophy has kept me from the extreme heights of business rock-stardom, for sure, but it’s also kept me from a lot of sleepless nights and what I imagine would be longer periods of depression.

My point is, yeah, Dave can find a job. Dave can even get a job, somewhere between a golf course and a corporate cube farm, for sure.

But after a year on the dole, what Dave is coming to grips with—what most of us are coming to grips with—is that the jobs we want are disappearing at an alarming rate.

Why?

The Talent Pipeline Is Jammed

I’ve been screaming for months about how broken hiring is, in every facet from jobs that don’t exist to useless AI screening to overwhelmed recruiters. What I believe is happening now is that “vibe hiring” has taken precedence over talent hiring, across the board.

In other words, when the humans in the hiring process are relegated to doing nothing more than double-checking the work of technology, those humans go straight into CYA mode, and thus hiring is looking less like a talent pipeline and more like a game of musical chairs.

In honest moments, recruiters and HR talent acquirers have told me that when presented with a prescreened stack of candidates, the “safest” thing to do is flag the ones who are coming from companies that everyone knows—Google, Amazon, Apple, etc.

They’re not hiring for success. They’re hiring to maintain the status quo.

This is not a huge secret. Amazon has been hiring like this for over a decade now. They’re not hiring the most talented people, they’re hiring the best potential Amazonians.

“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done,” Dave sneered. “It matters how well you’ll do what you’re told.”

And it works for them. So a lot of companies have followed Amazon’s blazed trail, without realizing that a decade later, once you hire enough great Amazonians, they tend to get tribal, both within the company and protecting it from outside influence—eschewing anyone who might come in and “shake things up.”

The AI Greater Fool Cycle Isn’t Over

Don’t get me wrong. I’m both an early pioneer and a fan of the processing and the math that we’re calling “AI” these days.

I’m just not 100 percent in love with how we’re implementing it.

Too many people think they know what this tech is and how it works. Too many companies are laying off huge swaths of talent (and the untalented alike, I get that), while giving automation more and more control over larger and larger chunks of their operation.

Man, I hate sounding like Chicken Little when it comes to tech, I really do.

But even if they’re right. Even if there’s so much fat in the system that the time for automation is now … Look, without writing 5,000 more words, let me make it super simple. It’s like using weight loss drugs instead of getting in shape. It’s quicker, it’s far less painful, the results are just like the real thing.

Except all the wear and damage that an unhealthy lifestyle has wrought on the body is still there, underneath the surface.

Damn. I really need to start working out again.

Seriously, imagine C-level executives in suits sitting around a laptop going, “Hey, AI, how do we make next quarter’s numbers?”

This is happening on a lot of levels right now. And the short-term results are just like the real thing. And that’s working. For now.

Sixty Percent Is “Good Enough” in the Tech Industry

Huh. That section title needs to be its own column. (I’m on it.)

My point is: What is going on in tech these days is good enough. For now.

The problem is that we’ve gone way beyond the automation of the workforce, all the way to the dehumanization of the workforce.

It’s haves and have-nots. And this is where tech starts to look less like tech and more like Amazon’s tribalism (not the rainforest, the Bezos business). It doesn’t matter whom you hire at the top as long as all the cogs in the machine at the bottom are doing their job.

But in the end, if 40 percent of the industry is vaporized, who is left to buy the tech? And why would they?

Be the 40 Percent

I’ve got good news and bad news here.

The good news is that these histrionics I’ve waved at you aren’t quite a pandemic within the industry, yet. This is more of a growing trend.

In other words, the scary part isn’t what is happening now, these things have been happening in cycles for ages. The scary part is what could happen, where tech turns into one of those industries where talent and merit don’t matter anymore.

I know, like five of those industries just popped into your head right away, right?

The bad news is that you’re going to have to make your own job.

I don’t know exactly how to do this, but I do know that you’ve got all that useless technology—job boards, open digital communication channels, easy ways to showcase your experience online for all to see—that you can repurpose for a better cause.

Tell them what you love, what you’d do for free, and see if the money will follow. Sure. You’re still going to get rejected. But at least it’s the kind of rejection worth getting rejected for.

I’m going to continue sending these missives from a dark and funny place. Please follow along by joining my email list.