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Before You Apply Online Again, Watch This...

102 professionals had their names, their employers, and a recruiter’s one-line verdict on them posted on the open web. Not one of them applied for anything, and none of them knew. Future of Work Strategist Jillian O'Malior found it, and she’s joining me live to show how it happened and why AI made it so easy.

Then there’s this week’s Business Insider report. Recruiting startup VanHack sold its internal data, including its Slack messages and CRM, to an AI data broker that’s spending $1 billion buying company data for AI labs. So who’s sitting in a recruiting firm’s CRM? People like you.

We’ll connect it all to the Hiring Reject Machine and why my Candidate-First Manifesto argues the company that puts job seekers first wins this arms race.

You’ll leave knowing what happens to your information after you hit apply, and what you can do to protect it.

Join us Wednesday, October 28th at 2 pm ET

This is one you won’t want to miss.

P.S. - Can’t attend live? Watch the recording anytime with the link above.

Let’s call it what it is. The hiring reject machine is real, and it has gotten much worse in the last year.

You probably know what I’m talking about, especially if you are a job seeker right now. The hiring reject machine isn’t one bad recruiter or one clunky application system. It’s the whole setup that’s now standing between you and the job you’re qualified to do. I’ve been coaching job seekers for a long time, and I can tell you this is the most frustrated I’ve seen people. So let’s walk through exactly what’s going on, because I guarantee at least one of these is hurting your chances right now.

Why the Machine Exists

There’s a reason why it started: companies were drowning in job applications and had to do something about it. Online job applications and advances in AI made it easier for people to mass apply to jobs. Companies were getting thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of applicants for a single job. HR physically cannot look at every one of them, so they built a filtration system to weed most people out.

That’s also why quiet hiring is on the rise. Companies just stopped posting some jobs because they don’t want 10,000 applicants. And if you’re applying online, studies show you have about a 0.4% chance of making it through to an interview. That’s not great.

You’re Being Treated Like a Suspect

There are so many fake resumes and fake applicants out there now that companies don’t trust anything that comes into their applicant tracking system. That includes you.

You can be telling the truth and doing everything right, and you still get lumped in with the bad actors. So even the littlest thing on your resume can get you tossed.

The Process Is Dragging On 

The average job search in the U.S. right now takes about 6 months. Why? Because companies keep adding steps, applications, tests, and hoops. They figure the more they put you through, the more likely they’ll land the right person.

And more and more of those steps involve a robot. In fact, a study found that 63% of job seekers have been interviewed by an AI agent, not a human. I’ve talked to plenty of people who walked away from the process because they were so upset about it. I get it. But this is the new normal, and if you don’t know how to engage with these tools the right way, you’ll get tossed.

Fake Jobs, Fake Hope

This one makes me crazy. Forty percent of employers have admitted they post jobs that aren’t real. I’ve talked about why this happens and why you get ghosted, but the takeaway is simple. Every single day, you may be applying to jobs you will never hear back from, because there’s no job.

Experience Is Working Against You

A lot of people assume this is age discrimination. Does age discrimination exist? Yes. But honestly, a lot of this comes down to the systems themselves.

If a system sees you as overqualified, it skips you. Companies want a match, not someone who’s done the job three times over. If you’ve heard me talk about the wisdom tax and the hiring pyramid, you know the higher up you go, the fewer jobs there are. Penalizing experience makes that even harder.

The Arms Race

Here’s a tough one. Many job seekers admit they’ve used fake resume tools to generate resumes that match a job and submit them. And most recruiters say they can spot those resumes. Now recruiters are wary of every resume that comes through, and some are marking people “do not hire” if they even suspect the resume isn’t real.

It’s Wearing You Down

And last but not least, the machine is simply exhausting people. Fifty-three percent of job seekers say they’ve paused their search out of complete exhaustion.

The number that really gets me is this one. The functional unemployment rate in the United States is up to 24.9%. That counts people who are unemployed or underemployed, working part-time and not making enough to make ends meet. One in four Americans. The machine is killing people’s chances of getting hired and making them give up, and I can’t stand that.

So What Do You Do About It?

First, know that this is not about you. You are not the problem. The system is.

Second, figure out which of these eight is hitting you hardest. Is it the black hole of online applications? The AI interview? The overqualified brush-off? You can’t fix a roadblock until you know where it is.

Third, and this is the part I’m really excited about, I built a brand new coaching tool, and it’s free. You can message me your biggest job search or career challenge, and I’ll email you privately with my suggestions on how to get past it. Tell me which of the eight you’re dealing with. Maybe it’s more than one. That’s okay.

You can find it here or at workitdaily.com.

And while you’re there, take a look around. Work It DAILY has a whole library of resources built to help you get hired, from articles and videos to coaching and tools for every stage of your search. Whatever is slowing you down, there’s help waiting for you.

I see how frustrated you are, and I want to help. Together, we can beat the machine. We just need to know what to do, and that’s exactly what we’re going to figure out.

Go get ‘em!

J.T. O’Donnell

If you're a professional who's tired of feeling invisible or undervalued, J.T. O’Donnell’s new book PRO VOICE: Turn What You Know Into What You Earn is for you!

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