AI Has Ruined the Job Market(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
AI Has Ruined the Job Market
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/ai-job-market-hiring/687403/
6 comments
I think I can square that circle.
If job-seekers were using bots to spam their resume to every job opening, whether they fit it or not, if they were creating resumes that didn't actually fit their talents (lying), and if companies were advertising openings that didn't actually exist, then the true job seekers and the true job openings can't find each other in the sea of lies and spam.
And, from what I can gather, that has been increasingly true for a decade. I don't know whether AI has made it worse in the last few years.
If job-seekers were using bots to spam their resume to every job opening, whether they fit it or not, if they were creating resumes that didn't actually fit their talents (lying), and if companies were advertising openings that didn't actually exist, then the true job seekers and the true job openings can't find each other in the sea of lies and spam.
And, from what I can gather, that has been increasingly true for a decade. I don't know whether AI has made it worse in the last few years.
> And, from what I can gather, that has been increasingly true for a decade.
I think fake job openings, lying on your resume, and applying everywhere have been a thing as long as jobs have. AI may have supercharged this.
But I don't think the structural issue is that companies advertise nonexistent jobs. Even companies I know are hiring (I know because they're paying in-house recruiters) have a tough time filling those roles.
Neither do I think that lying on resumes is cause of the problem. Even if resume spam is a massive problem, you'd expect that adaptations either in applicant behavior or in talent sourcing would emerge that would remedy this.
I think fake job openings, lying on your resume, and applying everywhere have been a thing as long as jobs have. AI may have supercharged this.
But I don't think the structural issue is that companies advertise nonexistent jobs. Even companies I know are hiring (I know because they're paying in-house recruiters) have a tough time filling those roles.
Neither do I think that lying on resumes is cause of the problem. Even if resume spam is a massive problem, you'd expect that adaptations either in applicant behavior or in talent sourcing would emerge that would remedy this.
I think that's part of the story, but the holders of the most popular marketplaces are I think willingly allowing the actual utility of connecting job seekers with jobs to fall to shit for the sake of user engagement. LinkedIn being a prime example.
If job marketplaces actually cared about the end user experiences of those seeking/offering jobs, we'd see much more effort towards blunting the impact of things such as AI spam and ghost job postings. They have no real impetus to do so, however, because they are making money hand over fist off the volume of people desperately interacting with their services.
In short, the main interface to the job market has been enshittified.
If job marketplaces actually cared about the end user experiences of those seeking/offering jobs, we'd see much more effort towards blunting the impact of things such as AI spam and ghost job postings. They have no real impetus to do so, however, because they are making money hand over fist off the volume of people desperately interacting with their services.
In short, the main interface to the job market has been enshittified.
Yeah, I think this is part of the issue. Job boards are the go-to interface for HR professionals to list jobs and for applicants to find them.
Those are much worse now, and most people aren't the level of standout talent that gets inbound jobs, nor scour careers pages for hours.
Those are much worse now, and most people aren't the level of standout talent that gets inbound jobs, nor scour careers pages for hours.
-Job seekers find it harder than ever to get a job -Companies find it harder than ever to find the people they need
These two things shouldn't be true at the same time, at at least eventually balance out, but it only seems to be getting worse.