05/08/2026
The job market isn't broken. It's working exactly as designed — for someone else.
Six patterns I'm watching as an Organizational Psychology based, change and workforce development practitioner:
→ AI screening AI. Candidates use it to mass-apply. Employers use it to mass-reject. The actual humans never meet.
→ Recruiters gatekeeping for friends and family. Referrals aren't the problem. The problem is when "referral" becomes the only door that opens.
→ Rate arbitrage. Staffing firms billing senior-level rates to clients while hiring at junior pay and pocketing the spread. The "10+ years required" language exists to justify the bill rate, not the work.
→ Job hugging. Talented people staying put out of fear, not fit. Internal mobility frozen. Career growth on hold across whole industries.
→ Job hoarding (the manager kind). Headcount held captive in silos while critical work goes undone elsewhere in the same company.
→ Job hoarding (the employee kind). Workers running two or three jobs simultaneously because no single employer feels safe enough to depend on.
This isn't candidate weakness. It's not employer evil either. It's a system optimizing for short-term cost and risk at the expense of trust, mobility, and long-term capability. The honest conversation starts when we stop pretending it's anyone's individual fault.
What patterns are you seeing?