Job Applicants Spend Thousands For The Chance To Find A Job

Job seekers are spending up to $10,000 on services, subscriptions, and databases to find a job.

Why It Hurts: It’s no mystery how rough the job market is these days — especially for the white-collar office roles that seemed plentiful just a handful of years ago. Due to remote work allowing anyone to apply for jobs in any market and the reliance on AI to sort through endless resumes, frustrated applicants feel they have no choice but to plunk down cash to get theirs to the top of the pile.

Behind The Curtain: People may need to get a part-time job to fund finding a full-time job.

• Job seekers are seeing bills ads up for LinkedIn Premium, career-coaching and recruitment services, job boards, resume editors, website developers, and AI tools that can speed up the application process.
• The job-seeking industry itself has become a “cottage industry,” per The WSJ. People get trapped in a doom loop, feeling they must pay for every service and tool to get ahead… even when they can’t afford it.

The Future: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it now takes a worker an average of 24 weeks to find a new job after losing their old one. Also, the number of people who are unemployed for more than 27 weeks has hit a whopping 1.8 million — and with more AI-related layoffs on the horizon, that number is expected to rise. One computer science grad has applied to nearly 6,000 jobs since graduating in 2023… landing just 13 interviews and zero offers. It’s getting bleak out there.

No wonder one software engineer in Illinois nearly rented digital billboard space to display his URL before finally landing a job. People are doing whatever they can to stand out.

Next Role: If the only way to meaningfully get ahead in the application rat race is by making connections IRL, we could be on the verge of a great worker migration (even if temporary) to regions that seem to have the most plentiful opportunities.