Why the US Job Market Feels Broken
How Employers and Job Seekers Can Fix It
Audience: Hiring managers, HR, decision-makers, job seekers
Contents
Introduction and Executive Summary
The Hiring Gap: A Bad Date, Not a Divorce
Employers: Why You Can’t Fill Those Desks
· What’s Holding You Back
· Five Fixes to Land Your Hires
Job Seekers: Why You’re Getting Ghosted
· What’s Blocking You
· Five Fixes to Land Your Job
Why the Standoff Persists
· Employers: Stop Whining, Start Winning
· Job Seekers: You’re Not Invisible
The Bigger Picture
· Employers: Long-Term Plays
· Job Seekers: Build Your Edge
Conclusions
References
Footnotes
Introduction and Executive Summary
The US job market is a mess of crossed signals. CEOs gripe they can’t find qualified talent, staring at empty desks while sifting through piles of mismatched resumes. Job seekers, even those with shiny degrees or decades of experience, blast out hundreds of applications, only to get ghosted by faceless software or stuck in interview purgatory.
It’s not a total train wreck: 7 million jobs are open, and unemployment’s at a tidy 4.2%, but it feels broken. Both sides are frustrated, pointing fingers, and stuck in a cycle of mistrust and missteps. X posts sum it up: employers call candidates “entitled,” job seekers call bosses “delusional.”
Forget massaged government stats or academic jargon; this is about two groups, employers and job hunters, and what they can do to cut through the crap and get results. We’ll touch on why the hiring gap exists, what’s fueling it, and give each side five actionable fixes to break the deadlock. In addition, we’ve documented the conventional job hunting tactics every job hunter should know cold; they are necessary, but not sufficient, for landing a job.
N.B.: If what you are doing isn’t working, check your assumptions. It might be illuminating indeed to write down those assumptions and have a heartfelt, detailed chat with your favorite AI1. We recommend it; despite hallucinations, training gaps, bias, etc., modern LLMs are still effective at fact-and-assumption-checking, proposing solutions and finding interesting ways to view difficult problems.
They offer a fast way to completely turn a bad situation around. Pro tip: demand and check support for every assertion made. Regrettably, AI still requires nearly 100% quality control checking. Perplexity happens to be very good at fact-checking and finding references, and is recommended.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
The Hiring Gap: A Bad Date, Not a Divorce
Picture the job market as a tense first date. Employers show up with a 10-page checklist for the “perfect” hire, only to find applicants who don’t quite match or vanish mid-conversation. Job seekers, meanwhile, are swiping right on every listing, hoping one sticks, but get ignored by algorithms or HR.
The result? A sluggish market where 7 million open jobs (Indeed, March 2025) coexist with 6.8 million unemployed workers, and hiring’s at its slowest since 2008 (4.2% rate). It’s not a collapse; 227,000 jobs were added in November 2024, but it is a grind. It’s also wickedly difficult to describe.
The Atlantic calls it the “Big Freeze,” with employers hesitant to commit and workers too cautious to leap. X users like @JoblessJoe, who applied to 500 jobs with zero interviews, capture the despair. Employers, like a tech startup founder posting about “no-show” candidates, feel equally burned. So, what’s driving this mess, and how do we fix it?
The gap comes down to mismatched expectations, clunky tech, and post-COVID / massive layoff scars. Employers want unicorns without paying for them, leaning on applicant tracking systems (ATS) that trash 60–75% of resumes (Jobscan, 2023). Job seekers spray generic applications, hoping to beat the odds, but miss the mark on skills or networking.
Both sides are gun-shy: bosses fear another Great Resignation (3% quits rate in 2021), workers dread rejection after stories like Dan Hevia’s 1,000-application saga. Below, we break it down for each group; why they’re stuck and five practical moves to get unstuck.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Employers: Why You Can’t Fill Those Desks
You’ve got open roles, budget to hire, and a stack of resumes, but the right people aren’t showing up, or they ghost you. Here’s what’s going wrong and how to fix it fast.
What’s Holding You Back
You’re Too Picky: You’re hunting for candidates with every skill, degree, and cultural vibe nailed down. SHRM says 45% of small businesses can’t fill roles because they reject applicants who miss one box, even if they’re trainable.
ATS Is Your Frenemy: Your ATS system is a gatekeeper gone rogue, zapping 60–75% of resumes for missing keywords like “AWS” or “Agile.” Qualified folks, like a coder with 10 years of experience, get binned for not saying “scrum master.” Overlogix note: Any application, program or system that, in effect, attempts to replace human judgement, especially on mission-critical tasks such as hiring, should be viewed with skepticism and extreme scrutiny. The learning curve should be considered steep, and non-trivial to use.2
Your Offer’s Weak: Top talent bolts when you lowball pay or demand five days in-office. X posts rail against “tone-deaf” employers ignoring hybrid work’s pull (80% of workers want it).
You’re Moving Like Molasses: Your hiring process: e.g., four interviews, coding tests, personality quizzes, etc. takes weeks. Glassdoor says 66% of candidates feel “stuck,” and the best ones take other offers.
You’re Fishing in the Wrong Pond: You’re posting on Indeed or LinkedIn but missing local talent pools, like bootcamp grads or freelancers who’d kill for a full-time gig.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Five Fixes to Land Your Hires
Ditch the Unicorn Hunt: Drop non-essential requirements, like a BA for a role that needs grit and basic coding. Many job skills can be taught in a matter of months. Google’s hiring coders without CS degrees; follow their lead. N.B.: Some skill sets take years or decades to develop (database experts, data scientists, architects); employers should know the difference, and learn never to hurt the hardest-to-get talent (layoffs, superficial rapid schedules, intimidation, etc.).
Rein in Your ATS: Audit your ATS for effectiveness compared to human filtering and be prepared to loosen keyword filters. Manually review the top 10% of filtered (machine-rejected) resumes. Write job posts with clear, jargon-free skills to attract better fits. Takes an hour, saves weeks. If your company cannot play your ATS system like a master violinist playing Paganini, and prove it on a continuing basis, examine the system and its usage for ROI.
Up the Ante: Offer 5–10% above market pay or hybrid options. Multiple studies shows an initial pay bump aids retention, attracts a larger and more qualified talent pool, boosts morale and productivity, enhances employer branding and reputation, and mitigates future wage increases and salary compression. Highlight perks like mental health days - candidates eat it up.
Move Fast: Cap interviews at two (one technical, one cultural) and decide in seven days. Faster hiring processes improve offer acceptance rates and retention of high-quality candidates. If delayed, email candidates: “We’re finalizing by Friday.” Keeps them engaged.
Tap Local Talent: Partner with boot camps like General Assembly or community colleges for pre-vetted candidates. Use proactive talent acquisition. Host a virtual job fair on Zoom to meet freelancers or career-switchers. X’s @TechHire often lists local events; jump in.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Job Seekers: Why You’re Getting Ghosted
You’re sending out 50, 100, maybe 500 applications, tweaking your resume until your eyes bleed, and still nothing. No interviews, no feedback, just a void. Here’s why you’re stuck and how to crack the code.
What’s Blocking You
ATS Is Eating Your Resume: Your carefully crafted CV gets trashed by ATS for missing exact phrases, like “data analysis” instead of “SQL.” We’ve all seen it: “500 apps, zero calls.” The only generic resume you will need for the next few years is your LinkedIn profile; all others need to be strongly crafted for the specific job description, with the goal of 90 to 100% keyword match.
You’re in a Crowd: You’re competing with 50–200 applicants per job, especially in tech or finance, where hiring’s slower than molasses. Standing out feels impossible.
Be First: The old business saw from “Margin Call”, “Be first, be smarter, cheat” holds true in the sense that HR cannot process the flood of applicants. Getting past their ATS machines is the first hurdle, demanding a definite and rapid process for editing a matching CV. Getting there first, among the first few applicants for the job, is a close second. Many HR departments prioritize applicants from the first 50 or so applications and keep the remainder in reserve if they don’t find acceptable candidates in the first batch. For the perhaps 10% of companies that don’t use ATS, rapid application, almost as soon as the job ad appears, is particularly important.
Skills Gap (Real or Not): Employers want buzzword skills: AI, cloud, cybersecurity, that you might not have listed or certified. A study from Manpower / Experis group finds 75% of tech organizations struggling to find qualified candidates with a 18%–60% digital skills gap (from UK government / Experis).
You’re Playing the Numbers Game: Blanketing job boards with generic resumes dilutes your effort, and is diluted by thousands of others playing the exact same game. Job-hunting isn’t a numbers game; ATS largely removes “spray-and-pray” applications from the start, and surviving CVs tend not to catch the attention of busy HR staff who might examine applications for at most ten seconds. Sending out large volumes of unsharpened applications is a waste of time.
Burnout’s Killing Your Edge: After 200 rejections, you’re demoralized, skipping follow-ups or flubbing interviews. Glassdoor says 70% of seekers feel “humiliated” by the process.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Five Fixes to Land Your Job
Beat the ATS: Mirror the job description’s keywords exactly; e.g.: swap “coding” for “Python” if that’s listed. Use Jobscan, your favorite AI or Google’s free Jobalytics to score your resume (90%+ is golden). Keep it clean: no headers, no funky fonts. The matching takes 2 - 3 hours per application.
Network Like Your Life Depends on It: Cold applications are a trap: 17 - 30%, on average, of jobs come via referrals, with some specific companies and industries reaching 50%. DM a company alum on LinkedIn with a specific ask: “Can we chat about your data team?” Join virtual meetups on Meetup.com or X communities like @CareerHacks.
Upskill in Weeks: Grab a free or cheap certification; there certainly are plenty of them: Google Data Analytics on Coursera ($50, 4 weeks) or AWS Cloud Practitioner on Udemy. List it on LinkedIn and your resume. Signals you’re current, no PhD required.
Hunt Hidden Jobs: Skip Indeed, et al., for smaller firms or startups on AngelList, where you face 20–50 rivals, not 200. Check X for direct posts; @TechHire shares founder-led openings. Apply to companies under 200 employees: they’re hungrier.
Stay Sharp, Push Back: Batch applications (10/day) and track them in a spreadsheet to avoid burnout. Practice interviews on Pramp.com. When offered a job, negotiate 10–15% above the first number; ZipRecruiter says 60% of employers expect it.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Why the Standoff Persists
This hiring gap is a game of chicken. Employers cling to outdated playbooks: rigid requirements, low wages, endless interviews, expecting a flood of overqualified candidates.
Job seekers, burned by layoffs and rejections, lean on job boards and generic resumes, hoping for a lucky hit. Both overuse tech: ATS for bosses, Indeed, LinkedIn, Monster, Dice, etc., for seekers, creating noise, not matches. Post-COVID caution fuels it: employers fear turnover, workers fear instability, so nobody budges.
X posts capture the vibe: “Companies want PhDs for $50K” vs. “Candidates ghost after three interviews.” The Great Resignation’s shadow lingers, with workers demanding flexibility (60% prioritize it, Gallup) and employers pushing back with office mandates. Yet, the market’s not dead; opportunities exist if both sides pivot.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Employers: Stop Whining, Start Winning
You’re not helpless. The talent’s out there, but you’re scaring it away with 1990s tactics. Here’s why your fixes work:
Loosening standards taps the 80% of applicants you’re rejecting who can learn fast. IBM’s skills-first hiring filled 15% more roles in 2024.
Fixing ATS ensures you see the coder who wrote “software” instead of “Java.” A quick audit caught 30% more viable resumes for a Denver firm (SHRM).
Better offers steal talent from competitors. A 7% pay bump landed a biotech firm 12 engineers in Q1 2025 (Indeed).
Speed locks in stars before they bolt. A Seattle startup’s one-week process nabbed a senior dev who had three other offers.
Local pipelines find diamonds in the rough. A Philly manufacturer partnered with a trade school and filled 20 machinist roles in a month.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Job Seekers: You’re Not Invisible
Rejections suck, but you’re not doomed. Your fixes give you control:
ATS hacks get you past the robot gatekeeper. Recommended: follow-up phone calls to HR at least, and the hiring manager if you can find out who.
Networking opens doors, cold apps don’t. Approach with caution and empathy for the busy person on the other side, connection first, some back and forth communication next. Try to arrange it so hiring you is their idea.
Upskilling makes you the obvious pick. It can be done with numerous reputable institutions and companies, for free.
Hidden jobs cut competition. Applying to a 50-person startup directly on their job site, better than competing with hundreds via LinkedIn.
Staying sharp keeps you confident. Mock interviews on Pramp and other preparations make a great deal of difference.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
The Bigger Picture
This isn’t just about you; it’s a market caught in a post-COVID, “can I replace workers with AI?” funk. Employers, you’re still spooked by the Great Resignation, false promises of an AI revolution (pro tip: not any time soon!), hoarding cash instead of investing in talent. Job seekers, you’re scarred by ghosting, or multiple previous layoffs, hesitant to negotiate or try new paths.
Tech’s a double-edged sword: ATS and job boards promise efficiency but deliver chaos. X threads spill the tea, workers want respect, bosses want loyalty, and neither trusts the other. But the data’s clear: 7 million jobs are up for grabs, and 60% of hires come from proactive moves (LinkedIn). The market’s tough, not broken, and action trumps whining.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Employers: Long-Term Plays
Beyond quick fixes, rethink your strategy:
Train Internally: Build a skills academy like Walmart’s, which upskilled 100,000 workers in 2024, cutting vacancies.
Sell Your Vision: Market your company’s mission on X or Glassdoor. A clear “why” attracts 30% more applicants (Indeed).
Diversify Sources: Hire from non-traditional pools—vets, career-switchers, formerly incarcerated. Programs like Second Chance Hiring filled 10% of retail roles in 2024.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Job Seekers: Build Your Edge
Stay ahead with these habits:
Curate Your Brand: Post weekly or more on LinkedIn about your field (e.g., “Top 3 AI trends”). Recruiters notice; many hires start with regular posts.
Freelance to Full-Time: Gig on Upwork or other temp work sites (posters on LinkedIn routinely publish lists of relatively uncrowded freelancing sites) to showcase skills. A graphic designer landed a $80K role after a client converted her (X, 2024).
Learn Forever: Dedicate one hour weekly to free courses (e.g., Khan Academy). Keeps you sharp for the next pivot.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Conclusions
Employers, your next hire’s buried in that resume pile; cut the red tape and pay up. Job seekers, stop spamming LinkedIn, Dice, Monster, Indeed, etc.; network and skill up to shine. The US job market’s a beast, but it’s tamable. Try one fix today: bosses, audit your ATS; seekers, connect with hiring managers and send a LinkedIn DM.
Share your wins or woes in the comments: what’s working for you? Subscribe for more no-BS career tips, and let’s crack this market together.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
References
Brian Creely (“Life After Layoffs”) finds many of the same conclusions we do, but still believes LinkedIn is the only game in town. His videos are basically sales pitches for his (paid) coursework, ironic since he denounces the sales pitches of other, perhaps less polished, hawkers of LinkedIn “secret knowledge”. Since he represents the corporate recruiter side of the picture, when he agrees with our contrarian conclusions, it is worth noting. We stop short of recommending buying any of his products, but his videos do provide some clues as to what’s happening in the job market. Caveat emptor!
Footnotes
Thank you for reading this article!
More information about Overlogix can be found at Welcome to Overlogix!
We currently publish on both LinkedIn (general interest articles, summaries, TL;DR’s: easier and faster to read) and Substack (in-depth articles, how-to’s, technical studies and new approaches to business).
LinkedIn:
· Why hire me? The elevator pitch
· Introduction: Welcome to Overlogix!
· The Overlogix Sunday Times Our newsletter, with occasional specials, published roughly every two weeks.
· Master Index All our articles can be found from here in two clicks.
· The Overlogix Table of Context All Overlogix articles in reverse chronological order
· Applied Artificial Intelligence: Index of Articles One of our specialties is Applied AI. This index lists all relevant articles on the topic, in reverse chronological order.
· Applied AI: Stories in the News Our semi-permanent, curated listing of interesting and important news from the world of artificial intelligence, from many different sources.
· Index: Getting a Job Up until recently, getting a job, much less a good job, has been a nightmare for most job seekers. We publish articles on how and why this is so, and what job hunters can do to find the perfect job for them. We also supply credible external resources, so people can consider their alternatives.
· Starting a B2B Business For everyone who can, we heartily recommend starting your own business. The tools are there, and there has never been a better time to do it.
· Building Our Own Robot We’re automating Overlogix from the start, and this series of articles tells exactly how we are doing it.
· Rebuilding the Linux Server: Index of Articles Running AI on your own machine (recommended) requires a modern, up-to-date operating system, and often a lot of additional software infrastructure. This series, dedicated to exactly that sort of system administration, details what we have done to build a powerful server that runs both databases and artificial intelligence, locally.
· The Gospel According to ChatGPT Conversations with various AIs and additional articles on the various challenges associated with actually making profitable use of artificial intelligence.
· TL;DR: Index of Fast Reads Brief, fast reads on various topics in artificial intelligence. If you are a beginner at AI, or a busy human needing fast and factual explanations of complicated technical topics, this is the place to start.
· TL;DR: Overlogix Artificial Intelligence Mini-Wiki Same Fast Reads as previous but arranged in a mini-wiki format some folks may like better.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Substack:
· Welcome to the Overlogix Substack
· Overlogix: Table of Context Index to our Substack articles arranged by topics.
· Criteria for Paid Content Rules for what goes behind our paywall.
· Curated IT and AI Sources Annotated links to sites and YouTube channels we think are valuable.
Back to Contents · Back to Top
Grok, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are all reasonable choices for general AI use, with the caveat that all of them hallucinate a fraction of the time (guesstimate: about 35% of factual statements are hallucinations), demanding very strict quality control on the part of the user. Checking factual claims can be done well with Perplexity AI, which is also good at finding references for particular facts.
While the fraction is rising rapidly, especially among large enterprises, most estimates and expert commentary suggest that as of 2025, less than half of ATS in use globally employ true semantic analysis, with the rest still relying primarily on keyword matching. Put in simple language, this means most ATS are dumb keyword-counters in fancy clothes, and are not really suitable for the mission-critical chore of filtering incoming applications, a task for which they were not originally designed.