Welcome to Career Essentials, where I share actionable insights and curated articles that will help accelerate your career and supercharge your job search.

Challenges In Today’s Job Search

You know job search is harder today! I am sharing this to help validate a lot of the things you are seeing (and feeling).

From the recent Jobvite/Employ Job Seeker Nation Report 2026

📌 Not hearing back from employers after applying

📌 Not hearing back after interviews

📌 Finding roles that match my experience or skills

📌 Competing with a high number of applicants

📌 Lengthy or complicated application process

📌 Too many interview rounds or long hiring process

📌 Lack of transparency (e.g., salary, benefits, expectations, etc.)

📌 Receiving unclear or generic rejection feedback

📌 Encountering scam or fake job postings

All of these are real and impact your motivation. The trick is to shift the focus to the things you can control (and take control where you can).

✅ Don't be afraid to followup regularly until you get an answer. (Automate it if necessary)

✅ Spend less time scrolling job boards and more time having conversations with people who do similar work. They can help you define job titles.

✅ Competition isn't anything you can do about. Stay focused on what YOU are doing! And give it your best!

✅ Create a master template you can use to copy and paste common application information. (And if you don't want to go through their lengthy application, maybe you don't really want the job... move on)

✅ The hiring process will be long. Always ask what their process is and their timeline.This is important for you too! Ask questions, learn as much as you can about the role so you make the right decision for you!

✅ Change your expectations about feedback or updates. And keep moving forward with your search.

✅ Learn what the tell-tale signs of scams are and just accept that you will encounter them (remember robocalls?)

When you take control of what you can in job search (focusing on conversations, not just applications), you get better information and better results. Plus, you feel you are making progress!

What do you do to overcome some of these challenges?

See the comment section in the post on LinkedIn for more ideas.

🔎 JOB SEARCH

Keep Your Job Search Active - Erica Reckamp

Job search is hard work and you’ve been working hard since January! This post encourages you to keep working and why it’s important.

🤝 NETWORKING

Why You Keep Leaving Networking Events Empty-Handed - Greg Roche

If you approach networking with a different set of expectations, you’ll do things differently, and see new results. Are you a gardener or a shopper? Hint: The gardener gets better outcomes!

💻 LINKEDIN

Your 5 Open To Work Titles Work As A Filter - Kristof Schoenaert

This explains one of the subtle nuances of LinkedIn’s job search that only someone with LinkedIn’s Recruiter tool would know. You are allotted 5 titles when listing you’re open to work. These behind the scenes titles are more important to getting found than you knew. Schoenaert lists 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟱-𝘀𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝘂𝗹𝗮

→ 1 current role (exact title from your profile)

→ 2 synonyms (variations recruiters type into the search bar)

→ 2 step-ups (level you want next)

🗨 INTERVIEWING

7 Questions YOU Can Ask To Be A Better Interviewee - Bogdan Zlatkov

Interviewing is a two-way street. And one way to be a stronger candidate is to ask smarter, insightful questions. Consider adding some of these to your next interview. And most importantly, do NOT wait until the end of the interview. Ask your questions early so you can use the information to provide relevant answers to future questions.

📃 RESUME

The XYZ Bullet Formula - Jan Tegze

Your resume bullets are weak and aren’t differentiating you. Here’s your challenge. Convert every bullet on your resume so it show context and impact. Here’s how you do that. Use the XYZ Formula instea:

X = What you did

Y = How you did it

Z = What changed (the result)

Simple format: “I did X, using Y, which led to Z.”

🔮 WORKFORCE

ADP National Employment Report: May 2026 - ADP

Take notice of where growth (though minimal) is happening. It’s the small to medium private sector that are adding jobs. Here’s a snapshot of the data. (And I am not sure why 122,000 jobs were added but 124,000 jobs show by size)

Change by Establishment Size

- Small establishments: 67,000

1-19 employees 49,000

20-49 employees 18,000

- Medium establishments: 17,000

50-249 employees 10,000

250-499 employees 7,000

- Large establishments: 40,000

500+ employees 40,000

💰 CAREER

Will Taking a Bad Job Actually RUIN Your Career? - Shelley Piedont

Many job seekers are at a point in their search where they may need to take a “less-than-ideal” job. Shelley walks you through the thought process of what you should evaluate and how you should view this interim role.

24% Of Mid-Career Professionals Are Stalled - Matt Sigelman, Burning Glass Institute

This analysis points out three interesting things about careers:

Stall is widespread, but varies by role and sector.
Stall starts earlier than we think.
Stall is not inevitable.

A sentiment that I took away comes from this “The bigger lesson is that stalled talent is not failed talent. Often, it is misallocated talent: workers whose skills are no longer compounding in their current roles, but whose experience can still unlock mobility in the right adjacent path."