Why is it so hard to find a job – 10 reasons

If you’re wondering why it is so hard to find a job, you’re not alone. Millions of people are struggling to find jobs because they don’t leverage the right frameworks.

We’re covering 10 crucial frameworks on why it’s so hard to find a job and what you can do to make your life 10X easier.

March 2, 2024 by Kazu Fujimoto

The market is saturated

There are way too many employees and not enough job openings. For every job application, you’re expected to have hundreds of job applicants trying to get that same job. That’s why its so hard to find a job sometimes.

You need to make sure that you have a solid resume at minimum.

Your resume needs to include:

• Keywords
• Quantitative Results and Accomplishments
• Skills

Ultimately, you want to highlight business impact on your resume and talk about how you either saved or made the company money.

High layoff environments

If companies of one sector will see a particular company behaving one way, then they will likely follow suit. Big tech company lays off a bunch of people? Then if you’re working at a big tech company, expect to see those getting laid off as well. This applies even to start ups.

Unfortunately, this is not in your control. If you’re looking for a job and you’re in a high layoff environment, it’s going to be harder for you. As a result of being in a high layoff environment, set yourself up in your career.

The top performers in their industry don’t need to worry about layoffs. Do everything you can to become a top performer at work and you will be fine during layoffs.

You don’t know how to write a resume

This sounds crazy, but many people don’t know how to write a resume. We get clients all the time that fail to meet basic requirements on resumes.

Does your resume include keywords, quantitative results, accomplishments, and skills?

Do you use a simple format?

If you answer no to the two questions above, then you need to get to work on your resume ASAP.

Check out our resume writing guide for a step by step.

You don’t have solid interviewing skills

You may know how to write a resume, but you might not know how to interview for a job. Getting nervous, being unprepared, and not being able to answer interview questions will hurt candidate’s chances of getting the job by 50% or more.

When you interview for a job, general things that you want to make sure is:

• Speak loud and confident
• Answer interview questions using the STAR format
• Practice behavioral and technical interview questions depending on your field
• Strong body language and eye contact
• Ask detailed questions about the company, position, and business objectives at the end

If you can do those 5 steps above, then you’ll have no issue interviewing for a job.

Interviewing is scary and it’s very easy to get nervous before an interview.

Practice makes perfect, especially in the case of job interviews.

See: Signs You Will Not Get The Job Offer For Engineers

Lacking a strong network

Your existing network might be too weak to even get you a job. There are very mixed feelings regarding networking that you will find on the web, but proper networking will get you opportunities that you normally wouldn’t be able to get.

Take every existing chance possible to network – your friends, colleagues, and even family.

For example, if you frequently go to the gym a lot, ask someone at the gym for any opportunities in line of work that you’re interested in.

Chances are, you might be able to find someone who can get you a referral or a lead to a position at a company.

Don’t shut networking out and really use all possible resources when you’re looking for a job.

You don’t have the right skills for the job

Unfortunately, you just might not have the skillset needed to get the job that you want.

A simple way to go about applying for jobs that you don’t have the skills yet for is to just add the skill the job requires on your resume, but say something along the lines of (in progress). This way, employers will know that you’re actively working on the skill, and having that initial keyword in your resume can get your past the initial applicant tracking system.

The other way is to just add the skill in the resume anyways, but if a job requires you to have a skill, then you’ll need to know how to talk about your skills in an interview.

Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is when you feel like like an imposter regarding your line of work. When you have imposter syndrome, you feel as if the work you do is not meaningful. You might not feel fully competent in your work.

Get rid of this thinking. It’s only negative behavior and will not lead you to any success.

What you need to start adopting is the business output of the work that you’re doing – this either ties into specific metrics or the big picture overview.

Understand the macroeconomics and metrics regarding your line of work, and you will be in the Top 1% of your competition, guaranteed.

Because you might feel like an imposter, you may be selling yourself short on opportunities that you’re qualified for.

Get rid of imposter syndrome ASAP.

You don’t have the right mindset

Imposter syndrome, not understanding your business impact, not being confident in your own abilities – these all tie in together.

Ultimately, you need the right mindset when you’re looking for a job.

You need to understand that you have value to deliver.

If you don’t believe in yourself, then who will?

Start by keeping a daily log of the tasks that you’re doing – this will exponentially start to fill up over time with your results and accomplishments.

6 months from when you start, you will have accomplished so much and your mindset will change along with it.

You’re not applying to enough jobs

Job hunting is a numbers game. Like we’ve discussed that for each job, you expect to see about hundreds of applicants for that job. As a result, you need to make sure you’re applying to hundreds of jobs.

Sometimes, this is the name of the game.

Apply to as many jobs as possible and make sure that your resume is tailored to the job that you’re applying for.

You’re just not lucky enough

Sometimes, you need to understand that the game just takes luck.

You always get things you want when you don’t need them. This is just how life works. Job hunting is no different.

When you’re in the state of mind that you don’t need something, you become outcome independent.

Outcome independence is crucial to carrying yourself in a much better manner.

To become outcome independent regarding your job search, you need a fat pipeline. This means you need to be having interviews all the time, constantly getting messages from recruiters, and have a bunch of job offers lined up. To get to this point, you need to be a solid performer and deliver value.

Those who truly deliver value to companies have no issues getting job offers.