Here's what to expect when job hunting in 2025.

Insights on the current job market, keeping realistic expectations, and spotting all of the endless fake job postings.

WE LIVE IN UNPRECEDE- enough of that. We can keep acknowledging all day that times have changed and how CrAzY everything is, or we can focus our energy on navigating next steps.

Luckily for you, that’s what I’m here for. Which means you’ll receive the next steps without using up your precious energy (if you’re subscribed! If not, what are you doinggggg? It’s free and will continue to be) and you can go back to focusing on the unprecedentedness of it all if you wish.

Welcome back friends.

Whether you’ve been recently laid off from a career you’ve had for 20 years, you’re looking for your first job, or you’re comfortable where you’re at, this post will be applicable to you.

It’s important to be aware of how things are changing and what’s going on out there in the world of work. If it’s not you, it’s someone you know.

I’ll give it to you straight.

The job market is pretty tight, technology keeps changing things, and job hunting doesn’t look like what it used to. If you’re not careful out there, you could be out a lot of money… and self-esteem. As if not having a job wasn’t bad enough.

So, what should you expect and be aware of in these unprecede- sorry sorry… in the 2025 job market?

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1. It’ll take longer than you think.

Many of my clients have made the mistake of waiting until the end of their six months of unemployment benefits to begin looking for a job. There are a few things wrong with this:

1) In order to receive benefits, you have to be ‘actively looking’ for a job, though the log you have to fill out is not very extensive.

I won’t tattle on you if you’re not actually looking and just coasting for a bit. I get it, might as well make the most of the situation. But, its important to know the facts - which is you have to be actively looking for a job to receive the check. Big Gov might ask for the money back if they find out your Sims has been the one applying to jobs for the past six months and not you.

2) Finding and landing a job will take longer than you expect, and you’ll have wished you began at the beginning of the six months.

Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics from July 2024 shows that it is taking the average person five months to find a job, with timeframes ranging from 3-8 months.

Its important to know the timeframe here because if you’re currently in a job you’re not loving and thinking about quitting before landing that next job, I would caution you to rethink your decision. While this may have worked for you in the past, I’ve heard too many stories of people leaving their job voluntarily (which means you do not qualify for unemployment) thinking they’d land a job quickly, only to be sidelined for months. The best job you can get is the one you currently have. Do your research before jumping ship.

2. It’ll take more effort than you think.

Piggybacking off my first point, landing a job will also take more effort than you think or had to give in the past. It’ll get frustrating. You’ll shake your fist at the sky screaming - the system is rigged!

Yes, you’re right, it is. Things are different now. Employers are cautious, jobs are competitive, and the sooner you accept this the better.

Economic conditions are not very conducive for job creation right now. Everything is about streamlining and efficiencies. Creating more jobs and paying people to perform them doesn’t cut costs and appease those ominous shareholders.

While I do think our government plays a large role and has responsibility in creating an economic environment that fosters job creation, staying mad at the system and lack of job offers won’t change your situation.

It’s hard out there. You’ll feel down on your luck. You’ll see other people posting about promotions while you’re writing another cover letter and getting ghosted.

It’s not your fault, and you’re not alone.

It’s easy after receiving another rejection letter (if you’re lucky enough to even receive one) to get down on yourself and feel victimized. And you are completely valid in feeling this way! But, what you do next will determine your success.

Our emotions about a situation can begin to shape our perception, and in case you didn’t know this - our emotions lie to us.

Your emotions will tell you your value is tied to your income, but it’s not. Your emotions will tell you no employer wants you, but that’s not true. It’s a less personal process than you think. Your next employer just hasn’t found you yet.

You’ll need to protect your spirit and confidence during the process. Not enough people talk about the toll job hunting takes on our self-esteem and wellbeing.

But once again,

It’s not your fault, and you’re not alone. But, what you do about it is your responsibility and no one else’s.

It is an uneven, mismatched game, but at the end of the day, no one owes you anything. It’s up to you to put in the work, find the jobs, talk to the people, write the cover letters, learn the skills, and fill out the applications.

I know, it sucks to be the little guy when dealing with Big Employer, but you have to stick with it. You have to protect yourself and build up an armor against rejection.

You will be okay. You could be one application away from exactly what you want. Big Employer already took your job, but don’t let them take your hope too. They don’t deserve it.

It’ll take effort to find your next job. You might not like to hear it, but it’s true. If it doesn’t though, tell me how you did it!

As they say, hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

3. Beware of fake job postings.

There are SO many fake job postings out there. There isn’t just one kind either, there are all sorts of fake jobs to be aware of and try to avoid. They all make my blood boil because nothing pisses me off more than when people take advantage of other people when they’re down.

While I can’t get them to stop yet (still figuring that out, but if you post fake jobs, sleep with one eye open), what I can do is expose them and spread the word so you don’t fall victim to these schemes.

Before I get into it though, one piece of advice: if the job posting feels off, it probably is. Trust your gut.

I’m debating writing a whole post dedicated to how to spot fake job postings, but here’s a synopsis:

Fake jobs to steal your money.

These are scam companies that will have a name similar to ones you may have heard of. They’ll post a “remote, entry-level, NO EXPERIENCE required!” bs-type of posting for a position like Data-Entry. Once you apply, they’ll reach out immediately, usually wanting to communicate via WhatsApp or text (red flag), and they’ll send you a link to a website to order a WFH set-up from and say they’ll reimburse you.

It’s not a real website, and you’re not going to get reimbursed. Luckily, a friend of mine called me before moving forward in a process like this (calling you out, Bri) and I can only imagine how many people have fallen victim to these schemes.

Fake jobs to steal your data.

Think of how much information is on your resume. Everything professional about you, and possibly even your home address (which is unnecessary to include and unsafe). Other companies will pay these companies for their data on you. Sometimes these types of ‘jobs’ are hard to spot, but always beware of the “easy-apply” jobs where you only upload your resume, especially if the job description is generic and entry level.

Easy work-around - look up the company and see if they’re real and have a real jobs board on their website. Then apply directly on their website instead. Problem solved.

Fake jobs - AKA ‘Ghost jobs’ - to keep a deep applicant pool.

These jobs are posted by real companies, but they’re not actually hiring. While this is typically frowned upon on job board sites, it still happens a lot. When searching jobs, I narrow the search by filtering jobs only posted within the past 2 weeks. I almost never apply to anything older than that because they are probably inactive/not hiring.

Fake jobs to promote a product.

This one was new to me and a former client pointed it out after he noticed something funny on a job posting on Indeed. He was looking for an animation job and sent me a posting he found. Under further investigation, the ‘company’ that posted the job wasn’t a company that we could find anywhere. The red flag was that the position required 2-years experience with a very specific software/editing platform that we had never heard of. It was a newer product, let alone one anyone would have 2 years experience in.

Our conclusion was that the software company created a shell company on Indeed to post jobs requiring experience with their product so that people would buy and learn it. They’re starting to get pretty creative! If I could remember the company I’d drag them through the mud right here.

Bonus: Duplicate job postings.

Don’t believe the open job numbers you hear thrown around. Recruiting sites alone duplicate so many job postings. A company, typically bigger and well renown, will hire multiple agencies to recruit temp, contract, or permanent employees for them. These companies will all post about the same job, along with the company’s original posting still out there. Now there are five postings for one position. While these are not fake, they are creating a false sense of hope in the job market and over-inflated job numbers.

If you take anything away from this, its research the company BEFORE you apply.

4. You might need to change your expectations of what you’re doing next.

Hopefully you understand this point now, but the job landscape does not look the same as it did a few years ago. As technology evolves, many skills and jobs are becoming irrelevant and you might not be able to land the same type of job you had for the same pay.

Because we live in a relatively free market, the value designated for certain types of work can change dependent on the value the employer will get out of that skill.

It’s not personal. You might have been a great salesperson for file cabinets. You knew everything there was to know about them and how to get good sales. Unfortunately, for you, most businesses now use ‘the cloud’ and don’t have much need for physical filing cabinets.

Maybe if you look for a long time and consider relocating you can find another job where you can sell filing cabinets, but you may not get paid as much as you did before.

Once again, its not personal, people just don’t need file cabinets. You can stick with what you know, or you can evolve with the market. Perhaps consider selling cloud software instead, the filing cabinets of the sky. But just know you’ll need to be flexible.

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I don’t mean to paint a grim picture by any means. There are jobs out there looking for candidates like you, you just need to keep applying and putting yourself out there. Take every rejection as a challenge.

And now that you know what to expect, we can move on to what to do!

In my next post, I’ll discuss how to navigate the job market, where to look for jobs, tips for a successful job hunt, and resources to keep on hand.

Good luck out there, and keep your chin up.