Over 11.3 million jobs are waiting to be filled in the U.S., but it doesn’t mean there are opportunities for everyone.
For job seekers with significant experience, the current hiring market can be grim. Junior roles are in abundance, while roles that require more experience are in short supply.
“Overall, it’s still a candidates’ market, but companies aren’t flexing on their requirements as much as we’d hope they would,” Gillian Williams, founder of recruiting firm Monday Talent, tells Fortune.
A survey last year by job site FlexJobs found that nearly half (46%) of job seekers said they’re only finding jobs that pay lower than their market rate. Over two in five seekers said there weren’t enough openings of any kind at their level in their area of expertise.
That’s the story for Tori Allen, a PR strategist in Buffalo with over a decade of experience. She says the job market is really only hot for junior-level talent. “I’m always either under- or overqualified,” she says. In January, she left her full-time job as national head of PR at a nonprofit, with two promising prospects lined up.
“I left thinking, Okay, one of these companies will give me an offer, and this will be a short-lived, two-week situation,” she says. But after interviews, including with senior managers, and even discussions of salary and start dates, both companies ghosted her. “It was very heartbreaking. One of those has reposted that job three separate times.”
A survey last year from hiring site Indeed found that potential employers have ghosted almost 4 in 5 (77%) of job applicants since the pandemic began. That same survey found that only 27% of employers hadn’t ghosted an applicant during the pandemic—a troubling suggestion that the tactic is now a common part of the job application experience.
Indeed’s research bears out what Allen sees among her connections. She’s a member of a Facebook community for women in marketing and communications that she says is laden with stories from job seekers who were ghosted well after the third round of interviews. Allen has come to call the phenomenon "the Tinder Effect."
“Recruiters think, because the pool is so huge, the perfect person is out there, one swipe away,” she says.
“Companies feel like, with remote work, they’re already compromising,” Williams says. “They may be feeling, if they’re flexing enough on things like location and hours, they shouldn’t have to settle for anything less than a perfect candidate.”
Left on read
After Alicia Nieva-Woodgate’s job as head of corporate communications at a software development company was eliminated in November, she instantly began applying for new roles. Five months later, she’s still at it.