Hello Everyone & Happy Tuesday!

The days leading up to a long weekend always seem to move a little slower. And then before we know it, it’s next Tuesday, somehow feeling like a Monday, and we’re all wondering where the weekend went. Let’s make the rest of this week a productive one. Enjoy!

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If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me, "J.T., how's the job market?" I'd be retired on a beach somewhere. But I'm not, because I genuinely love helping people figure this stuff out. And honestly, this question deserves a real answer. So let's talk about it.

Every month, the jobs report drops, and everybody loses their mind over whether the unemployment rate ticked up or down a tenth of a percent. Here's the thing: that number is an average across every industry, every skill set, every corner of the country. It's essentially meaningless for your specific situation.

Think about it: healthcare right now has a serious shortage of workers. There are jobs sitting open that can't get filled. Meanwhile, since the start of 2026, the tech industry has had 110,000 layoffs and counting. Those two realities exist at the same time, and they get blended together into one tidy little number that tells you…basically nothing.

And let's not even get started on the fact that "employed" counts anyone who's working. This includes people who are underemployed, working a job way below their skill set and pay grade, or stuck part-time when they desperately want full-time. That's not employment. Those people are in survival mode. But the data doesn't care about the difference.

This one really gets me, because I watch so many smart, talented people pour hours into applying online and then wonder why nothing is happening. There are over 300,000 companies in the U.S. that are required to post jobs publicly because they receive federal funding. Required to post them. Not required to look at anyone who applies.

A study from last year found that your chances of getting a job through an online application right now are 0.4%. That is point-four percent. And on top of that, as many as one in four job postings are outright bogus, fake listings, scams, or positions that were never real to begin with.

So if you've been sending out applications and hearing nothing back, please hear me when I say: it is not you. The system is broken. You're just playing the wrong game.

Here's where things get interesting and, honestly, exciting. Companies have largely stopped trusting résumés. Too many people are using AI to fabricate experience, inflate credentials, and basically fake their way through the application process. So employers have adapted. They've moved toward what's called skills-based or evidence-based hiring. They need to actually verify that you can do the job before they bring you in.

So how are they finding people? Quietly. Recruiters are getting on LinkedIn, using advanced search tools, including LinkedIn's new AI-powered recruiter tool, and proactively reaching out to candidates who match exactly what they need. These jobs are never posted. You'll never see them on Indeed or ZipRecruiter. They go directly to the people who showed up in the search results.

I'm not guessing at this. From March to April, I personally saw a significant jump in my clients being contacted by recruiters out of nowhere because they had set up their LinkedIn profiles the right way.

Stop worrying about the job market as a whole. I mean it. It's noisy, it's complicated, and most of it has nothing to do with your job search. What matters is whether recruiters can find you when they go looking for someone with your exact background.

That means learning how to signal on LinkedIn. It means optimizing your profile so you show up in the right searches. It means positioning yourself as the obvious choice before a job is ever posted, because by the time it hits a job board, the best opportunities are often already filled.

Is it a little different from what most people are used to? Yes. But "what most people are used to" is also getting a 0.4% response rate, so maybe it's time to try something new.

Stop applying into the void. Start showing up where the real opportunities are. And if you're looking for some help with your job search / LinkedIn strategy, head to workitdaily.com to learn more. There are jobs out there. I promise you. You just need to know how to be found.

Go get ‘em!

J.T. O’Donnell

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