The Job Market Is Hell
theatlantic.com
The Job Market Is Hell
1–10 of 29 posts
Re: The Job Market Is Hell
#2Re: The Job Market Is Hell
#3I’m super happy the EU AI Act exists. All use of AI in the process of employment needs to be classified as high risk:
AI systems used in employment, workers management and access to self-employment, in particular for the recruitment and selection of persons, for making decisions affecting terms of the work-related relationship, promotion and termination of work-related contractual relationships, for allocating tasks on the basis of individual behaviour, personal traits or characteristics and for monitoring or evaluation of persons in work-related contractual relationships, should also be classified as high-risk, since those systems may have an appreciable impact on future career prospects, livelihoods of those persons and workers’ rights.
“High-risk” in this sense requires:
1. Comprehensive logging (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:...)
2. Transparency in how the systems work (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:...)
3. Human oversight (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:...)
4. A named individual in the EU with responsibility for the system (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:...)
Re: The Job Market Is Hell
#4> a paid internship at a civic-consulting firm, years of volunteering at environmental-defense organizations, experience working on farms and in parks as well as in offices, a close-to-perfect GPA, strong letters of recommendation
> He would do anything—filing paperwork, digging trenches—to build his dream career protecting California’s wildlife and public lands
> He applied to 200 jobs. He got rejected 200 times. Actually, he clarified, he “didn’t get rejected 200 times.” A lot of businesses never responded
I'm not sure this has anything to do with AI.
It's hard enough to land an environmental non-profit, state, or federal environmental job. It is doubly difficult to do so when both the Federal [0] and State [1] government are slashing hiring across the board.
This article is just "AI washing" austerity measures and offshoring that is occuring in the US.
[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_m...
[1] - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/california-governor-ai...
Re: The Job Market Is Hell
#5> He would read a posting carefully, scrub his résumé, tailor an introductory note, answer the company’s screening questions, hit “Send,” hope for the best, and hear nothing in response—again and again and again.
That sums the process up pretty well. The advice for "surveying friends and former employers for leads" seems like the best bet (and referrals probably always have been), just a shame no one in my network works anywhere I'm interested in.
Re: The Job Market Is Hell
#6> a paid internship at a civic-consulting firm, years of volunteering at environmental-defense organizations, experience working on farms and in parks as well as in offices, a close-to-perfect GPA, strong letters of recommendation > He would do anything—filing paperwork, digging trenches—to build his dream career protecting California’s wildlife and public lands > He applied to 200 jobs. He got rejected 200 times. Ac…
Agree that these are very very hard industries in which to secure employment.
At the least the anecdote is not that informative about the effects of AI, given the details.
Re: The Job Market Is Hell
#7>asking recruiters out for coffee
What is this? Dating?! Is this really a thing??
Re: The Job Market Is Hell
#8I applied to hundreds of jobs. By now it's maybe even over a thousand. Most of the time it's either no response or "we decided to move further with a candidate which is more aligned...". And later I see the same job posting emerge again.
The ones I got through were extremely random. Some rejected me because of money, some just ghosted me after the code challenge. But they have one thing in common - the competition is insane. With the hungry crowd on the market, the companies can pick the best of the best. At one place I got rejected at the final round, they had two screening rounds: code assignments. They told me, that both of these challenges were cleared only by 15% of total applicants. So I imagine it's not easy to get through 15% -> 15%, and then you have a set of the top candidates and you can pick the toppest.
The current situation on the market is extremely demotivating.
Re: The Job Market Is Hell
#9> a paid internship at a civic-consulting firm, years of volunteering at environmental-defense organizations, experience working on farms and in parks as well as in offices, a close-to-perfect GPA, strong letters of recommendation > He would do anything—filing paperwork, digging trenches—to build his dream career protecting California’s wildlife and public lands > He applied to 200 jobs. He got rejected 200 times. Ac…
Agree that these are very very hard industries in which to secure employment. At the least the anecdote is not that informative about the effects of AI, given the details.
Both Harris and Martine's anecdotes provide little evidence about AI being linked to their hiring issues.
The author is just conjecturing that AI has had an impact on their job markets, when both are primarily targeting government and government adjacent roles when state and federal governments are in the process of slashing funding.
Re: The Job Market Is Hell
#10Last time I applied out in 2023, I probably submitted 700+ applications. I've been CTO of several medium sized organizations, CEO of a startup that exited, and am a great backend coder and software architect.
I got 2 interviews. One wanted me to be CTO to manage a 50 person team for $180k. I made $200k in 2014 managing a smaller team.
I gave up and do consulting now. It's actually easier to find clients and I can collect 3-5 paychecks. Works much better.
edit: I forgot a recruiter was working with me. I asked him what was going on. He said I was "too senior", "looked expensive", and "no one wants to hire white males right now."