The job market feels BROKEN right now.
And most people are blaming AI.
But here's what a recruiter with 20 years at Target, Microsoft, Capital One, and Peloton Interactive told me and Omar on our podcast this week:
👉 AI isn't the problem. The economy IS.
William Chichester, III - who just got laid off himself - was brutally honest about what's actually happening inside recruiting right now:
1️⃣ Companies went from "hire anyone you can find" to "only hire 10 people" almost overnight
2️⃣ Recruiters are getting hit with an application avalanche - hundreds of apps within seconds of posting a role
3️⃣ When you go from 100 spots to 10 with 10X more applications, referrals go from "nice to have" to "the only way in"
So what do you do if you're a job seeker in 2026? 🤔
William gave us his personal cheat code - the same one that got a liberal arts kid from a farm in rural Virginia into Vanguard and IBM without knowing anything about the business world:
❌ Stop cold applying.
✅ Start reaching out to real people.
And here's the counterintuitive part - don't just message recruiters. Message the software engineer. Message the accountant. Message anyone who works there. Because the person who gets your resume to the right place doesn't have to be in HR.
William is currently job searching himself and using this exact playbook. And he told us point blank: the outreach is getting him in the door. The applications are getting him nowhere.
So if you're grinding through Workday for the 47th time this month and hearing nothing back - this episode is for you:
WTF Is Up with Recruiting???