While the U.S. labor market remains strong, certain industries—such as tech—have faced industry-wide layoffs, leaving thousands of highly qualified workers looking for jobs. But going from a high-paying dream job to spending weeks, months, or longer searching for a new job has left many employees feeling burned out from looking for a job.
Job Search Burnout
“Employees are burnt [sic] out,” explains Lauren Brown West-Rosenthal in an article for BBC Worklife. It’s a trend that is taking a toll on workers in a volatile job market impacted by budget cuts and hiring freezes, she says, especially for younger workers. They’re engaged in a seemingly endless pursuit of jobs—or even interviews—and are spending countless hours writing cover letters, honing resumes, and hoping for some response, often to no avail.
West-Rosenthal points to research to back up her reporting. “Researchers for LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index recently surveyed more than 30,000 US professionals about how confident they felt about their prospects of keeping or finding a job, on a scale that ranges from +100 (most confident) to -100 (gloomiest),” she says. “For workers actively seeking jobs, the overall response in January 2023 was +36. In May, it slipped to +27.”
Opportunities for Employers to Stand Out
So what does this mean for employers? Well, for one, these burned out job seekers represent a potentially lucrative source of talent for staff-starved companies. It’s just a pool they’ll have to work a bit harder to tap into. Savvy recruiters should be reaching out to these frustrated job seekers directly, allowing them to tap into a potentially lucrative pool of labor that more passive recruiters might not see. And employers should be evaluating their talent acquisition processes to ensure they are engaging and that they’re not inadvertently “ghosting” candidates.
You may not have any openings today, but you likely will down the road. When you do, you want to be able to nurture the positive impressions you made on candidates—even, and especially, those you didn’t interview or hire.
Lin Grensing-Pophal is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.
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