Recruiter Explains Why It’s So Hard to Bag a Job Right Now—the Labor Market Is Cooling

While the national statistics say that the US labor market is still going strong, the number of people looking for better career prospects is also on the rise. In a recently uploaded video on TikTok, 26-year-old recruiter Kourtlynn Faith talks about how applicants face several challenges and why businesses are so slow to hire them. She also takes the opportunity to shed light on why it is extremely hard to get a job right now. "It's hard, and maybe this can get you a job," she says before mentioning how she was laid off three times and that it took her seven months to find a job. "I was not the only person in recruiting or HR that was laid off. If you have a company that has 300 jobs listed, right, you might only have five recruiters for all 300 of those roles," she says.

"It used to be like 12-15 recruiters to one company, one department in a company. So it takes a long time to go through resumes," she continues. "Every single job I’ve ever worked at, we have looked through every single resume. I have never used AI and I’ve never used an automated system. So if you have 300 roles posted, you have 2,000 people applying to each role," she explains. Emphasizing the fact that it can take a lot of time before recruiters can shortlist. "It used to be, six years ago, you could apply for roles you weren’t qualified for and you might get hired, it happened to me. But now companies are not willing to spend the money or the time to train people and it sucks," she continues.

She then talks about how applicants don't need to pay to make a good resume and can download a resume or go to a free resume-building site. "It’s like a free app, or you can do it on your computer, use that resume template. I have used it for years. It’s very simple because recruiters only spend about 30 seconds looking at somebody’s resume," she says. Faith then talks about how important a temp agency is when it comes to getting help bagging a job. "The amount of roles that are converted from temporary to permanent in these companies is insane, and not only temp roles but sometimes we outsource to these agencies and say ‘Hey, we don’t have a great candidate. You guys have anybody?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah,’ and then that person gets hired," she says. 

"Look at companies like Randstad, and Robert Half, there are so many more. Indeed, ZipRecruiter, let them go. Last thing, to be very honest, I am making less than I have ever made in a recruiting position ever because the job market sucks," Faith continues.

She then says how the companies simply don't want to spend money. "It is what it is!" she says. So far, Faith's video has been viewed more than 1.9 million times and has more than 200k likes. Many took to the video's comment section to talk about their challenges, "She is not lying. I was laid off last year and in a rush to find another job, I just took a job that was toxic. They did me a favor by firing me. Then landed my dream job. please try a temp agency," user @khadijahlynch writes.

The temp agency tip resonated with a lot of people with users like @cityofroseschic writing, "Yeah, the temp agency I went with totally ghosted me. Finally, found a government job on my own... Good luck, y'all."

As per government data, U.S. employers added 2.7 million people to their payrolls in 2023, and unemployment hit a 54-year low at 3.4% in January 2023. However, people on the internet have been complaining about the lack of jobs. A reason for this discrepancy could be the fact that the labor market is kind of cooling, per CNBC. 

For more such content,  you can follow @kourtlynn_ on TikTok.