Woman Who Was Laid-Off Says She Has 10 Years Of Job Experience And Has Applied To Over 100 Positions But Can't Receive A Single Offer
Despite a growing job market, some job seekers are struggling to secure employment.
TikTok While many career experts claim that the job market has steadily been increasing with opportunities for employment, many job candidates are finding it hard to secure a position at many companies and organizations.
Wesley Anna, 30, explained in her TikTok video that she was recently laid off and despite her years of extensive experience, she can't seem to find anyone willing to hire her.
Even with 10 years of experience, she has applied to over 100 positions and hasn't received a single offer.
In Wesley's TikTok video, she decided to inform viewers about the terrible luck she has been having with trying to find employment after having previously lost her last job due to lay-offs. "Are you curious about how the job market is doing right now?" she inquired.
"Let me show you." Wesley then showed her followers that she has been tracking all of the positions she's applied to on Notion, a productivity and organizational tool. "I've hidden all the roles for obvious reasons. There are 100 positions listed here."
She continued, saying that while people have asked if maybe she's just not qualified for all of the job applications she has sent out, she in fact has an impressive resume. "I'm not entry-level, I'm not even mid-level," she stressed. "I'm a senior designer."
Wesley acknowledged that she has had ten years of experience working in her career field. For three of those years, she explained that she worked with a company that was featured on the Fortune 500, an annual list that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years.
"Another one of those years was working with big-brand tech companies, like Softbank and Dropbox," she added. "And yet still, I wake up to [rejection] emails every single day."
Despite the high number of job openings, many employers are only favoring certain candidates when hiring.
Unfortunately, there are many qualified employees such as Wesley who are having difficulty with being offered a position at the companies they are applying to. However, it doesn't mean there aren't enough jobs on the market right now.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, via Vox, that there are 8.4 million potential workers who are unemployed, but it also says there are a record 10.9 million jobs open. The rate of unemployed people getting jobs is much lower than it was before the pandemic, and it's taking much longer for people to get hired.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Julia Pollak, chief economist at the ZipRecruiter jobs site, explained, "A lot of the interest from employers is not spread evenly across the labor pool. There are some people in very high demand and there are some people who get no interest at all."
“Employers really do value prior experience a lot.”
So then why aren't candidates, such as Wesley, with impressive work experience and years of having positions in their desired career fields not getting hired? According to a report published by LinkedIn, there are a few reasons.
Some of those reasons included managers feeling as though experienced candidates wouldn't want to stay at their companies for a long period of time, and that these experienced applicants will find the mundane tasks they are assigned boring, as they may be used to working in sophisticated environments.
Wesley has since informed her followers in another video that she did eventually manage to get hired after almost three months of endlessly searching and even offered some advice for all those candidates out there still searching.
Her top tips were to both network and only apply to jobs that you feel you are a "perfect fit" for. "Make sure you're spending the time to find roles that you are actually fit for, and there's not gonna be a lot," she said.
"If you target those roles specifically, and most importantly, in the interview showing enthusiasm for this role, and a desire to work there. Then you're going to have a better chance compared to anyone else applying."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics.