This TikTok Career Coach Just Perfectly Broke Down What's Going On With The Job Market Right Now, And It's A Must-Read
In 2021, a record number of people quit their jobs, and it seems like every time you scroll through the news there's a new headline about labor shortages. But at the same time, I'm constantly seeing posts and comments from frustrated jobseekers who've applied to dozens (or even hundreds) of job postings and can't seem to get a call back. So what the heck is really going on?
FX / Via giphy.com
J.T. O'Donnell is a career coach and CEO of Work It Daily, an online career coaching platform that offers free resources. And she recently shared a video on TikTok that explained why, despite so much talk about labor shortages and record numbers of people quitting their jobs, it can be so hard for a lot of people to get hired right now.
In the video, she starts by explaining how she uses Google alerts to predict layoffs and stay on top of trends in the job market. "What you're not seeing in the media, because all you're hearing about is that there's a labor shortage and that there's a ton of jobs. And companies can't fill positions. What you're not seeing is the restructuring going in on the back end, and let me show it to you," she says.
O'Donnell points to headlines about possible layoffs at Twitter, Facebook, and Carvana as indicators that many companies may be considering cutting staff in the near future. (We should note some dark irony here: BuzzFeed News is also reducing staff following a disappointing earnings report from our newly public parent company.)
"So what this really means is the fact that even though 41 million people quit their jobs last year, right, the Great Resignation, they quit jobs nobody wants. So when you hear about a job shortage, it's all jobs nobody wants."
"I get at least 50 DMs a day in my social media accounts from people saying, 'J.T., what am I doing wrong? I'm applying to jobs. I can't get anyone to call me back.' And I have to explain to them that there's a job shortage for the kind of jobs that you want, those really good jobs, and it's going to get more competitive."
And here's where it gets really juicy. J.T. explains that in this job market, recruiters are often doing the legwork to find the right candidate instead of waiting for jobseekers to find them. "Forty-one million people quit their jobs — think how many people are applying to jobs. So what's happened is companies stopped posting jobs, and it's called a 'hidden job market.'"
"Instead, recruiters reach out to individuals they think are a match for the job. So that's all happening right now as part of the Great Restructuring of 2022. And people don't realize that and get frustrated and feel bad about themselves. What's wrong with me? There's nothing wrong with you. You just don't know the new rules to career success and jobs."
"My point is you have to know these new rules. You have to follow this information that's not public, because what you're seeing out there about the economy and everything else isn't an accurate reflection of what's going to happen in the job market."
So instead of following typical advice about hunting down jobs and sending out your résumé, J.T. says that in competitive job markets (like right now), you want to make it so that it's super easy for recruiters to find you for the job you want. I had to learn more, so I reached out to J.T.
NBC / Via giphy.com
She's been a career coach for just over 20 years, and she left her position as a corporate recruiter in 2001 because she saw a real need for accessible and actually helpful career advice. "I was working with all these people who, if they just had a little coaching, they could have been so much more place-able, and we could have had so many more people in jobs. And that really bothered me."
"I noticed that school wasn't teaching this and that a lot of people are getting misinformation. So I left and decided to become a career coach. And if you fast-forward 20 years, my whole mission has been to level the playing field, to give people the information they need to give them access to really good career coaching."
First, she says the hidden job market isn't new, but it's really having a moment in 2022. "The hidden job market has always been around. There have always been companies that don't want to post jobs and get 1,000 applicants, but it's become a lot more popular right now because you have so many people looking for work."
So in this kind of job market, she says tapping into the hidden jobs is more about optimizing your profile than pounding the pavement. "LinkedIn is just like an internet search. Like a Google search is built on an algorithm. There are 830 million profiles and counting on LinkedIn. So when a recruiter types in, you know, I'm looking for somebody in the Houston area with social media background, etc., etc., they're going to get a lot of people."
"Let's say you go do a Google search. You know how you get 100 pages of results? You and I might look at the first page, maybe a little bit of the second page, but we're certainly not going to look at all 100 pages. Same thing on LinkedIn. Recruiters going to get hundreds of matches, but they're really only going to look at the first 20 or 30, and by then they're probably going to find who they need. So how do you end up in the top 20 or 30? You optimize your LinkedIn profile."
