The Need for Old-Fashioned Hiring

I’m not going to use all the examples The Guardian provided, but let’s just say… hiring isn’t what it used to be. Today, AI and other computer models leave perfectly qualified candidates wondering what happened.

Philip Kowalski lost his job earlier this year, but had faith in his credentials - a master’s degree and years of experience managing American foreign aid contracts. Instead, he discovered he was but a single fish swimming in a sea full of other fish… all looking to chow down on the same opportunistic morsel of food.

“I’ve put out maybe 400 job applications in the last five months. [However]...I’ve only gotten a handful of interviews…. It’s a really bleak situation.” Well, he at least got some interviews. The last four jobs I applied for, with the intent of working at least eight or so years into retirement, didn’t result in any interview. The jobs that required experience... hired those with less.

From the high-tech coasts to the mid-west heartland, job seekers describe a market where even advanced degrees, decades of experience, and thousands of applications often yield little more than silence, or even scam calls.

With an ambiguous labor market, things aren’t likely to get any better. The unemployment rate increased to 4.3% last month, the highest rate since 2021. However, keep in mind, 5% unemployment has long been considered full employment as there are always employees in transition from one job to the next.

Long-term unemployment has climbed, with 1.9 million Americans out of work for at least 27 weeks, double the figure from early 2023. Underemployment is growing as more people are working part-time involuntarily, or accepting jobs far below their skill level simply to secure benefits or cover bills. Newsflash! It’s been that way since most of the population moved off farms and into city jobs. It’s called earning a living. One does what they must. It’s not new.

A 32-year-old Kentucky woman thought her MBA would open new doors. Instead, she says she graduated “in what is apparently the most difficult year to get a job with an MBA in the history of the degree”. She has sent “over 2,000 applications over the last six months”, often tailoring them for consulting, healthcare operations, HR and sales jobs. Yet she says “very few people reach out for an interview anymore. It’s mostly scams that contact me.” She points to AI-driven hiring tools that “aren’t really catching actually qualified people.”

Which brings me back to the title of this blog. There used to be a day when virtually everyone walked into a company of interest, asked if they were accepting applications and, if the answer was “yes”, filled out a paper application. Occasionally, one got hired on the spot. Most were even willing to train. Hiring was mostly local, not nationwide or even worldwide. One was usually paid well because the company didn’t want to lose you. Why? Because that sea of workers was more like a lake. Sadly, the digital age has turned most of us into something AI-dependent Big Corp would rather spit out than partner with.