The job hunt is as bad as it seems—a quarter of candidates have been looking for year
About 20% of job-seekers have been looking for work for at least 10 to 12 months or longer, according to a new report from Career Group. Both candidates and hiring managers have a hand in why it's taking so long.
For many of those on the job search, sending in job applications can feel like throwing résumés into an abyss. Turns out the hunt is as bad as it seems.
It can take an absurdly long time to find a job: About 20% of job seekers have been searching for at least 10 to 12 months or longer, according to a new report from Career Group which surveyed 765 candidates across many industries. Most applicants, about 30%, say they've been looking for four to six months, while 23% have been on the hunt for two to three months, nearly 17% have been on the prowl for up to one month, and about 7% were seven to nine months deep into the search.
The fact that nearly a fifth of professionals have been job-hunting for over a year isn't surprising. Despite the labor market being relatively strong—the unemployment rate is low right now at 4.1%, and there's been some job posting growth—there are a litany of horror stories on finding work. One job-seeker said he applied to over 1,700 roles, but didn't hear a peep from recruiters until venting about the situation on TikTok. In 2024, 40% of unemployed professionals said they didn't have a single job interview that year, according to a Harris Poll survey.
Findings like this can be validating for white-collar professionals down on their luck; it can be incredibly isolating and mentally draining sending applications into a black box. There are a few reasons why landing a gig takes so long nowadays, and they fall on job seekers and recruiters alike.
'In cases where it takes 10 to 12 months to find a job, there are many variables,' Susan Levine, CEO of Career Group, tells Fortune. 'Are candidates realistic? What are their salary expectations? Are they flexible? Are they turning down jobs being offered to them? While the hiring process is taking longer now, that alone wouldn't explain why it might take several months for a candidate to secure a role.'
Applicants have the right to be choosy about where they work—after all, they'll be spending a third of their waking hours on the job. But they may be shooting themselves in the foot being too picky.
Although the share of professionals thinking they're likely to be unemployed soon hit a record high last year, job-seekers wouldn't accept less than about $81,500 salary at a new role, according to a 2024 survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It's understandable that workers want a wage that is comfortable and livable, but it narrows the field of options they can apply to.
And even when job-seekers are turning in their applications, they're leaving hiring managers high and dry. About 29% of Gen Z and young millennials have 'career catfished' recently, ghosting their prospective bosses after making it to the final interview round, according to 2025 data from PapersOwl. A good chunk did it as a dare, some thought they'd be better off elsewhere, and others admitted they 'just weren't feeling it.'
Levine says it's imperative for job-seekers to be open to new possibilities. After all, careers aren't always an upward climb, but rather a squiggly path to success.
'It is important for candidates in any market to be flexible, open-minded, and excited to explore opportunities,' she says. 'The market is competitive, and to gain an edge, you need to be extremely well-prepared and genuinely invested in learning as much as possible about the companies you're interested in interviewing at.'
But the job-seeking process taking so long for so many can't fully be pinned on workers. Some eyebrow-raising hiring trends have been on the rise—and they're out of applicants' control.
There's a reason why so many job-seekers complain about radio silence after sending in their resumes to hundreds of positions: They're hitting 'apply' on gigs they have no chance of actually landing. About 81% of recruiters say that their employer posts 'ghost jobs,' gigs that either don't exist or are already filled, according to a 2024 report from MyPerfectResume. And it's not just one or two postings that are fake. Around 36% of these hiring managers admit a quarter of their open opportunities are indeed ghost jobs.
'Companies are trying to project, 'We're okay, we're still maintaining hiring, that we're still moving in a growth-oriented trend. In this market, our organization is doing well.' That ties into why these fake jobs might be appearing more,' Jasmine Escalera, a career expert for MyPerfectResume, told Fortune. 'It really is about the business, the bottom line, showing growth, showing trends, and how that can connect to maintaining profit.'
Not only are recruiters posting ghost jobs, but they're also expecting more from applicants. It was once considered sacrilegious for a candidate's résumé to be longer than one page—anything more would be a time-suck for hiring managers. But now, as more are using AI to filter top candidates to the next round, over half of recruiters now want a two-page résumé from applicants, according to a 2024 report from Criteria.
They also want to suss out job-seekers for a longer period of time; unemployed professionals have complained about having five, six, seven, or eight interviews before getting an answer. The standard used to be around two or three rounds before an employee is picked. Plus, getting an update between the interviews can take several weeks or months. The process is undoubtedly being dragged out at many companies—it's turning employees off, and making them abandon hope.
'We often hear job-seekers saying, 'I'm tired, I'm depressed, I'm desperate,' using these very harsh words when it comes to the job market,' Escalera said. 'This is one of the reasons why they are losing faith in organizations and companies.'
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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