The Market Is Slow, Not Closed

Oct 6

4 min read

This past week I sat with client after client, different industries, different states, different levels. And almost every one of them asked me some version of the same question in the first ten minutes: "Is it me?"

Then Friday's jobs report came out and gave a pretty clear answer. It is not just you. The economy added 29,000 jobs in September when the experts expected about 90,000. Openings are down. Nobody is quitting. Searches are running longer for everybody.

So you can exhale a little.

But here is the part that is going to sting. The market explains why your search is slow. It does not explain why your search is stuck. Those are two very different problems, and only one of them is out of your hands.

What the Slow Job Market Actually Looks Like Right Now

Let me give you the real numbers, because the headlines only gave you one.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2 percent. Part of that is more people jumping back into the search. Participation hit 61.8 percent, a four-month high. That is good news for the economy. It also means more people in line for the same seats.

And there are fewer seats. Job openings fell to about 7.1 million in August, the lowest since March. Almost all of that drop came from the smallest businesses, the ones with fewer than ten employees.

Then there is the quits rate, which sits at 1.9 percent. That is tied for the lowest since June 2020. When nobody leaves, nothing opens up behind them.

Put it together and you get longer searches. About 1.9 million people have been out of work for six months or more. That is more than a quarter of everyone who is unemployed right now.

So if your search feels slower than it did two years ago, you are not imagining it. It is.

Slow Is Not the Same as Stuck

A slow search still moves. You get a screen here. A second interview there. A rejection that came with actual feedback. Slow is frustrating, but it is progress.

A stuck search does not move at all. Same applications. Same silence. Same resume you have been sending since spring.

The market decides how slow. You decide whether you are stuck.

A Scene From My Side of the Desk

Let me show you what a slow market looks like from the hiring chair, because I sat in it for almost twelve years.

A posting goes live on a Monday. By Wednesday there are a few hundred applicants. The recruiter has a hiring manager asking for five good candidates by Friday, plus fourteen other open roles to work.

So what do they do? They read the first batch closely. They skim the rest. They call the people who were referred. And the ones that look like they were sent to forty other companies that same afternoon get a few seconds each.

Nobody in that chair is trying to be cruel. They are trying to survive the pile. And in a market like this one, the pile is bigger than ever.

Your job is not to get louder in that pile. Your job is to stop looking like the pile.

The Framework: Shrink, Sharpen, Show Up

This is what I walk clients through when their search has gone from slow to stuck.

Shrink. Cut your list. Pick 10 to 15 companies you would actually be glad to work for, and go deep instead of wide. Make sure some of them are mid-size companies. The smallest businesses are pulling back the hardest on hiring right now, so do not build your whole list out of them.

Sharpen. Every resume you send should sound like it was written for that one posting, because it was. Pull the language that repeats in the job description and make sure it shows up in your materials. And apply early. The first few days after a posting goes live are when someone is actually reading.

Show Up. People over portals. For every company on your list, find one human who works there and start a real conversation. Not "can you refer me" in the first message. Just a real question about the work. Referrals are how a lot of hiring happens when the pile is this big.

Shrink gets you focus. Sharpen gets you read. Show Up gets you remembered.

Your Homework

I do not assign homework as a rule. But this market is not playing by the rules either, so here we are.

Write down your current target list. If it has more than 15 companies on it, cut it until it does not.
Pick the one posting you want most this week. Rewrite your resume for that posting only, using the words it repeats.
Find one person at that company and send them a real question about the work. One. This week.

That is it. Three things. Do them before Friday.

Give Yourself Some Credit

Here is something the headlines will not tell you. More people jumped back into the job search last month than the month before. People are tired, and they are still showing up.

If you are one of them, that counts for something. Getting up and trying again in a market like this takes more grit than most people will ever give you credit for. So I am giving it to you.

Before You Go

Seasons change. This market will too. It always does.

Until then, your job is not to outwork the market. It is to stop fighting it with a strategy built for a different one. Shrink the list. Sharpen the aim. Show up for real.

And if you want someone in your corner who has sat on the other side of that desk, I am right here. You can book a $19 consultation and we will look at your search together, or check out the monthly coaching plans if you want help on a schedule.

Lauren