Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins/Futurism. Source: Getty Images
Do you still think that getting a job in 2026 is as easy as walking in with a resume and a firm handshake? You may want to read further.
In the United States, at least, the employment outlook is difficult. After a dreadful year for employment, US jobs rise stopped in december Layoffs and hiring freezes in sectors like construction and manufacturing weigh on job growth numbers.
And the crisis of access is growing beneath the official jobs figures. More and more job seekers are finding themselves locked out of the labor market – not because there are no jobs out there, but because the sheer decline of AI is driving them out of consideration.
The matter is this: a few months ago, technical publications Marck up Posted a vacancy for the role of an Engineer. As product director and editor Andrew Losowski writes, the experience was an instructive look at how broken the job market is.
“Within 12 hours of posting the role, we received over 400 applications,” Losowski said. “At first, most of these candidates seemed genuine. However, as someone who had to read them all, I immediately noticed some red flags, all of which were clear indicators of inauthenticity.”
Those “red flags” included repeated contact information, broken or non-functioning links to LinkedIn profiles, repetitive resume formatting, and non-residential mail addresses.
In responding to prompts on the company’s application form, most followed “an almost identical four-sentence pattern with minor variations”. Many applications included “ChatGPT says” in their answers, or included information that “almost exactly matched our job description,” Losowski writes.
“In the most extreme case, a person claimed they created our website and Blacklight (web privacy) tool (they did not),” the editor adds.
After just one day of that nonsense, Marck up Removed your ad from job platforms like Glassdoor and Indeed. Instead, they opted for internal outreach and word-of-mouth. While this undoubtedly limited their reach, it “greatly reduced” the flood of fraudulent applicants.
The publication has since found its own engineer, but not without any major problems. If you combine this with the rest of the job market, it’s no surprise Job seekers are calling on 2025 The year of the “Great Disappointment”. Barring any major changes, 2026 could be even worse.
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