In thinking that the job market is absolutely awful right now?

[Aurielle]

What is going on? I’ve been applying for the last 3 months to everything I can and it’s been SO hard to even get an interview. One of the jobs I applied for had 700+ applicants (via LinkedIn).

Is anyone else going through this? I’m starting to really worry. Is it likely to get better in the new year?!

Stop applying for jobs on LinkedIn go directly to the Recruiter reach out to the hiring manager have a human interaction
The only people I know that have been hired in the last 18 months have been through headhunters or Recruitment consultants

I am! Numerous calls with recruiters who quite frankly don’t seem to have the time, reached out to hiring managers who don’t reply. They also must be inundated.

I think it’s definitely been a tough period, with many companies being hesitant about resourcing, right-sizing, financial plans etc around uncertainty of what the Autumn Budget would bring. But, a lot of LinkedIn applications will be from people just one-clicking their CV over to every application they come across regardless of whether they meet the criteria, so I wouldn’t assume a vacancy with 700 applications has anything like 700 decent applications and let it put you off.

Are you registered with recruiters who specialises in your professional area as well as just contacting them? Have you had / considered having your CV reviewed by a professional coach or somebody in your field to make sure it’s including the right key phrases if being scanned initially by AI tools?

I agree with @ComtesseDeSpair. It's a difficult time for sure, but the 700 applicants on LinkedIn is not representative at all. Lots of them will be completely unqualified.

Yes, i helped DH get a new software dev role, I've found it similar, you need to reach out to the recruitment email of a local company even if they're not on the job sites like indeed. You can't use the sites they're too generic.

Look for companies in your area or surrounding and go straight to their website and fire a tailored friendly email w/ CV attached. It's the updated version of "just walk in with your CV lol" but with the AI slop everywhere actually I think that would work now..

I've been looking for a new job for almost 12 months. I've spoken to numerous recruiters, reviewed my cv accordingly, applied to hundreds of jobs, I have alerts set up across every job aggregation website. I search local employers, email and try to phone recruiters directly, etc. I've had maybe 2 interviews in that time.

It is dire. The sheer number of people applying for these jobs is astonishing. I think in my industry (software/sales/onboarding of clients) there's an element of it being easy and expected to remote work, which makes the pool of potential applicants huge. The jobs themselves are also more poorly paid, I'm definitely looking at a pay cut if I ever do succeed in finding another role.

I don't know what else to do but keep plugging away and hope something comes along.

Would you be prepared to say what it is? You do and I might be able to find a specialist in your niche.
The truth is the only people getting jobs are those who can do roles the AI can’t right now
There’s been lots of redundancies locally with people in security services for example, the ones stuck behind CCTV watching cameras will be replaced by more efficient robots and offered roles where they can go out and chase villains if they want to.
If they don’t want to, they’re going to need to retrain

I was just told today by an employment counselor that out of 250 resumes you might get four to five interviews scheduled, and out of four to five interview scheduled you might possibly hire one person. It was never like this before. It was like, five resumes to one interview to one hire. 20 years. Incredible.