How confident are you in securing a new role for 2027?
Welcome back!
I hope you have all managed to take some time off over the summer and recharge your batteries. I took time off and enjoyed exploring parts of Germany before spending time with family across the UK. Having taken some much-needed time off, I am writing this on my first week back, and I imagine many of you are in the same position. Still catching up on emails, adjusting to the alarm clock, and finding your rhythm again. After the first half of the year many of you have had, I hope you had a proper rest.
I have been doing this long enough now to know that the next few months will be the busiest of the year for anyone in career transition. This week I have started having conversations with people who are thinking about their next move, and what concerns me heading into this autumn is the market those people are walking into.
What a job search looks like today
Job postings across the UK have fallen 11% since January and now sit 32% below where they were before the pandemic, according to Indeed's mid-year update. Graduate postings are at their lowest for this time of year since 2020.
78% of hiring right now is replacement rather than expansion. Companies are filling seats that have been vacated. A replacement hire comes with an existing brief, an existing salary band, and a clear picture of who held the role before. There is less flexibility in that kind of process.
Employers are taking longer to make decisions too. Time-to-hire has increased by 10-20%. 71% of companies reported hiring difficulties in the first quarter of this year. A quarter of UK workers believe they have applied for at least one ghost job where a role was advertised with no genuine intention of filling it. 80% say they have applied for a role and heard nothing back at all.
I am sharing these numbers because if you are about to start looking, or you have already started, this is the market you are in. It is slower, more selective, and often completely silent. Knowing that from the outset changes how you approach it, and that is what I want to talk about this month.
Doomjobbing
A term has started to appear in the career press this year that I think every one of you heading into a job search should know about. It is called doomjobbing, and if you have ever found yourself scrolling through job boards late at night, applying for roles you are not sure about, refreshing your inbox for replies that never come, you have probably experienced it.
The term was coined by Jo Ellen Grzyb, a psychotherapist and careers expert at Impact Factory. Grzyb describes it as the job search equivalent of doomscrolling. You see a role, you feel a short burst of optimism, you apply, you hear nothing, your confidence drops, and you go back to scrolling to feel better. The cycle repeats. Grzyb explains that the behaviour operates on the same neurological loop as swiping on a dating app. A dopamine hit, followed by disappointment, followed by a craving for the next hit. It can become addictive very quickly, and the longer someone goes without a response, the more their insecurities and self-doubt get amplified.
I have seen this with some of those I have supported in recent years. Seasoned executives with decades of experience who have arrived at a consultation having lost all hope. People who have been applying for months, hearing nothing, and concluded that the problem must be them. It affects someone mentally in ways that are difficult to undo. Their sense of professional worth erodes. They stop seeing what they bring to a role and start seeing all the reasons they will be overlooked.
When you put those experiences alongside the market data, it makes sense. A market where 80% of applications receive no response. Where a quarter of advertised roles may not have been genuine in the first place. Where employers are taking 10-20% longer to make a decision. That is a market designed to feed the doomjobbing cycle, even for people who are doing everything right.
This is why I am writing this month's newsletter. I do not want anyone heading into their job search this autumn to have a similar experience. It is nothing personal. Job searching today is very different to how it was a few years ago, and the people who tend to do well in this market are the ones who understood that before they started.
What is working in this market - it’s a numbers game, but not the way you think it is
I have spent some time looking into what is making a difference for people who are successfully finding roles, and some of the numbers are worth knowing. The people who are finding roles in this market are not the ones sending out the most applications. They are the ones sending out the right ones.
Targeted applications achieve a 7-9% interview rate. Generic ones sit at 2-3%. Huntr's data from earlier this year showed that 48% of successful candidates landed their offer within 30 applications. Mass-application strategies typically require 150 to 250 because the quality of each one is so much lower. Beyond 80 applications, success rates start to decline.
I realise that feels counterintuitive. When you are anxious about your job search, the instinct is to cast the net as wide as possible. More applications should mean more chances. The data says the opposite. Volume without focus feeds the doomjobbing cycle. You spend your energy applying for roles you are not sure about, you hear nothing back, and the silence reinforces the idea that you are the problem. You are not. The approach is.
The other thing that stands out is the importance of relationships. In the UK, referred candidates are hired at a rate of roughly 30%, compared to 7% for those applying through job adverts. That is approximately five times more likely to result in a hire. 82% of recruiters say referrals give them the best return on investment. Somewhere between 40% and 50% of UK job offers come through warm networks. Former colleagues, peers, introductions through people you already know.
This is worth sitting with for a moment. If you are spending all of your time on job boards and none of it talking to the people in your professional life, you are investing your effort in the channel with the lowest return. I am not saying stop applying for advertised roles. I am saying make sure it is not the only thing you are doing.
Be clear on what you are looking for before you start applying. Treat every application as if it is the one that matters, because in this market, it might be. And tell people you are looking. Not in a desperate way. In a clear, professional, specific way that makes it easy for someone to think of you when the right opportunity comes up.
Jo Ellen Grzyb made the same point in her advice on doomjobbing. Tell everyone you are looking for a role. This is no time to be shy about it. People like helping other people, and the more others know you are looking, the more likely you are to find something.
You don’t have to do it on your own
Between Sarah, Jenny, and myself, we have the experience and the availability to help you get properly prepared for whatever comes next. Whether that is getting your CV right, thinking through your positioning, or working out what you are looking for before you start applying, we are here. Simply reply to this email or use the link below to get started.
Job Search Strategy Session
If you are heading into a job search this autumn and want to make sure you are approaching it the right way, book a one-hour consultation with me. We will look at your situation, the roles you are targeting, and build a clear plan so you are not wasting time and energy on the wrong things. You can book using the link below.
Thank you for continuing to trust us to guide you each month. I hope you get off to a flying start this autumn.
Best of luck!
Dave Crumby
Your Career Optimiser | Certified CV Writer