Job Seekers’ Behaviour Contributes to Shaping Today’s Job Market

Image Credit, alcangel144

Where’s the discussion that challenges the prevailing narrative that employers are solely responsible for the dumpster fire the current job market has become? Job seekers are failing—or not wanting to—recognize their influence on the many nuances of the job market, including how employers hire.

Employers have no choice but to constantly modify their hiring processes in response to job seekers’ job search behaviour, such as exaggerating their skills and experience, spraying and praying their resume or ghosting (Ghosting isn’t a hiring issue; it’s a societal issue.), to name a few ways job seekers are negatively influencing the job market. Thanks to the ease with which technology enables mass application (e.g., AI auto-applying), employers are now dealing with more bad actors and resume spam than ever, because job seekers have the misguided belief that the idiom “Throwing spaghetti at the wall until something sticks” is an effective job search strategy.

If the rage against today’s job market is ever going to lessen, job seekers need to acknowledge four things:

1. There’s growing frustration on both sides of the hiring desk.
2. Job candidates can only control their own actions.
3. The employer-employee relationship is asymmetrical.
4. Two wrongs don’t make a right. (Just because a hiring manager does it, doesn’t mean a job seeker should follow suit as an act of revenge.)

Rightfully, employers are frustrated by their hiring funnel being clogged with AI bot applications, irrelevant resumes (Applying to 300 jobs in a month isn’t a flex; it’s spray-and-pray desperation), scammers, and the lack of professional effort in applications, and unrealistic expectations and demands.

Today’s job market is characterized by scarcity. Growing job scarcity is driving job seekers to approach their search out of desperation, often leading to irrational, emotional decisions. Job scarcity has made job seekers irritable and impatient. Empathy for employers, if it ever existed, has all but disappeared. However, neither a person’s job search experiences, no matter how frustrating, nor their feelings can excuse or justify actions that fuel the job market dumpster fire.

As a job seeker, your conduct is entirely your responsibility. Expressing emotional reactions or seeking revenge, especially on a public platform like LinkedIn, makes you unhirable. Carefully consider what you’re revealing, on social media—which is permanent— about your personality, professionalism, maturity, and what employers might expect if they hire you. Employers are justified in considering online behaviour as part of their hiring process.

As a job seeker, never adopt the mindset of retaliating against an employer because another employer did it to you. Your values, if they’re genuinely a part of who you are, shouldn’t be affected by other people’s behaviour. It’s childish to say, “Well, if they can do it, then so can I!” Employers don’t hire people who show immaturity.

A significant part of being a professional is managing your reaction to someone else’s actions. How you conduct yourself during your job search reflects your professionalism and character. In the digital age, your reputation follows you—explaining why many job seekers don’t receive responses to their applications.

Few, if any, job seekers realize that employers only matter because they choose to make them matter. The importance you assign to an employer is your choice. Employers only have influence over you because you allow it, rather than understanding that an employer-employee relationship is transactional and not personal. As an employee, you’re renting your job until you decide to leave, or your employer asks you to leave.

Employers don’t owe you a job, feedback, or even closure to your interview. They only owe their business, current employees, investors, and shareholders. Therefore, when hiring, employers prioritize their own interests by using ATS and AI alongside knockout questions to reduce the number of applications to a manageable level. Conversely, job seekers are only responsible for their careers and earning an income. As a job seeker, by staying true to your values and not contributing to the rising discourse of the job market, you’re not only looking after your interests; you’re also looking after your fellow job seekers’ interests, if that matters to you.

Mind you, as I pointed out, job seekers can only control on their side of the hiring desk, which is half of the job market “experience.” When job seekers let the feelings and actions of hiring managers and recruiters dictate their own, it produces counterproductive consequences that contribute to today’s dysfunctional job market.

It’s common today for job seekers to utter the unsubstantiated assertion, “When an employer treats candidates poorly, it hurts their brand.” I’ve yet to see anyone provide empirical data showing that a company’s profitability has suffered due to their hiring process or ghosting. Employers create and maintain jobs; job seekers sell their value-add; and employees, to minimize the possibility of being let go, need to consistently and visibly maintain their value-add to their employer.

Even an asymmetrical relationship, such as the employer-employee relationship, has two sides. Job seekers own and control their side of the hiring process and therefore play a significant role in shaping the job market, which they can influence by following Mahatma Gandhi’s words: Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

_____________________________________________________

Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned corporate veteran, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. Send Nick your job search questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.