Welcome to Job Hunting 2025, where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter. That’s right—the points, like the certifications you got just to meet a bullet point halfway down a job posting no one will read, just don’t matter.”

The lights go up. You’re in a dark room. A spotlight hits the stage. Wayne Brady enters, beatboxing his resume to the rhythm of a sad trombone. Colin Mochrie is frantically applying to 47 jobs at once using Easy Apply, but the site crashes and now he’s legally married to an Indeed algorithm. Ryan Stiles tries to schedule a Zoom interview, but it’s double-booked with a webinar about “Building Your Personal Brand Through Strategic Gifs.” And Drew Carey? He’s somewhere in the back, screaming “CULTURE FIT!” every time someone asks about a 401(k).

This isn’t improv.

It’s the actual job market.

LinkedIn: The Digital Hunger Games

LinkedIn is no longer a professional networking platform. It’s a never-ending carnival of self-promotion, fake vulnerability, unsolicited advice, and job market trauma bonding.

You log in and are immediately hit with:

• “I just got laid off. Again.” (49,000 reactions, 900 comments, all recruiters saying “DM me.” No one DMs.)
• “Got hired today—after 497 rejections, a liver transplant, and learning JavaScript on a Nokia flip phone. You can do it too!”
• “This one sentence got me 6 interviews. It may be illegal in 4 states.”
• “You don’t need a degree. You need grit, $2,000 worth of bootcamps, and a medium-following on Threads.”

Everyone is either:

• A Job Seeker™ sharing “lessons learned” in the trenches,/
• A Recruiter™ ghosting people at scale while preaching empathy,
• Or an Influencer who hasn’t worked a real job since 2018 but is telling you how to “crush your brand narrative.”

The “#opentowork” banners feel like digital distress signals, while posts from new hires come with obligatory humblebrags and emoji explosions:
“Thrilled 🌟 to announce 🚀 that I’ve accepted a role as Head of Vibes at CloudYogurt Inc. Let’s disrupt dairy! 🧘‍♂️🍦”

Meanwhile, you’re refreshing your inbox wondering if that application from 12 days ago even went through.

AI: The Writer, The Reader, The Executioner

In the year 2025, your job application has officially become a battle between two robots fighting to the death—while your actual resume, your experience, and your hopes are sitting in the corner, eating glue.

First, you write your cover letter with AI. It’s emotional, sharp, maybe even clever. You train ChatGPT to mimic your voice, sprinkle in a few buzzwords like “impact,” “alignment,” and “cross-functional,” and proudly hit download.

Then you use a résumé builder that promises to “beat the bots” with military-grade keyword stuffing and formatting that looks like it was designed by a spreadsheet that got into graphic design school. You’re feeling good. Until you realize the next AI—the one on the other side—isn’t here to be impressed. It’s not your friend. It’s not even neutral. It’s a bouncer with a clipboard and one job: reject you based on arbitrary keyword logic.

This second AI doesn’t care that you once led a campaign that increased engagement by 400%. It only cares that you didn’t use the exact phrase “marketing lifecycle.” Even though that phrase makes you want to walk into the sea. And it gets weirder.

You might accidentally get through because you mentioned “campaign management” six times… even though you were referring to political campaigns and the role is for a digital marketing coordinator at a cat food company. Once you pass the robot gatekeeper, you’re now on your way to… another robot.

That’s right—your first-round interview might be an AI too. A glitchy chatbot in a navy blue interface asking questions with the warmth of a DMV printer. You respond into your webcam, knowing full well it’s not even a human watching—just a sentiment analysis algorithm deciding if your enthusiasm score is above a 7.3.

You can smile. You can wave. You can quote Maya Angelou and list every platform you’ve ever optimized. It won’t matter.

Because AI isn’t just involved now—it runs the whole show:

• AI writes the job description (which is why they all sound the same).
• AI evaluates your resume (badly).
• AI screens your video (awkwardly).
• And eventually, AI might even auto-reject you before a single human sees your name.

You’re not job hunting. You’re training data. At this point, the best strategy might be to have your AI write a cover letter to their AI, using machine learning sarcasm and passive-aggressive emojis to see if the bots can develop mutual respect and just let you through.

Maybe in version 6.0.

Application Purgatory

You made a spreadsheet. You signed up for the big six job boards. Then the niche ones. Then the weird ones your cousin forwarded from a Reddit post that might’ve been satire.

You:

• Upload your resume
• Fill in the exact same info again
• Add your portfolio
• Write a cover letter
• Hit submit
• Wait
• Nothing

You get more feedback from ordering DoorDash than from 80% of job applications.

Every Job Requires a Custom Resume

“We’re looking for a tailored resume that reflects our specific needs.”
Translation: Prepare to rewrite your entire career story to impress a job post written by a tired manager and an overzealous HR intern.

Somewhere along the way, the job hunt became a full-time job in itself—and not one you get paid for. Every listing now demands a bespoke resume, lovingly handcrafted to mirror the exact phrasing in the job description. If the post says “brand storytelling,” and your resume says “content development,” congratulations—you’re unqualified.

You’ll spend hours tweaking phrasing like it’s nuclear code:

• “Managed team projects” becomes “Led cross-functional collaborations in agile environments.”
• “Made stuff look nice” becomes “Developed visual solutions for multi-channel brand engagement.”
• “Did my job” becomes “Championed scalable workflows that optimized operational synergy.”

And you can’t reuse anything. Each company wants to feel special, like it’s the only one you’re applying to—even though we all know you’re sending out more applications than a Tinder bot on a Saturday night. The worst part? You don’t even know what they’re really looking for. You’re just guessing—trying to read between the lines of a post that says “entry-level” but requires five years of experience, mastery of 12 tools, and a recommendation letter from the ghost of Steve Jobs.

So you agonize over every verb. You switch fonts for “readability.” You drop achievements like:

• “Increased engagement by 327%”
• “Reduced churn by 50%”
• “Single-handedly saved the company from financial ruin during Q4 2023 using only Canva and sheer panic”

And then? Nothing.

No reply. No rejection. Not even a “thanks for applying.” Just the quiet knowledge that your custom-crafted resume went straight to PDF heaven with the other 183 applicants. Meanwhile, a job you applied to three weeks ago with a one-click resume just emailed you back… to say they’ve gone in another direction. You weren’t even facing the right way.

Scams, Ghosts, and Burnout

Job boards now include three categories:

1. Real jobs
2. Jobs that used to be real but are now just collecting resumes for later
3. Jobs created by a Nigerian prince with a marketing agency in his garage

You’ll be scammed, ghosted, or both. Maybe even by the same company.

“Thanks for your time! We’ve decided to move forward with another candidate.” You check the listing—it’s still up. It now asks for 10 years of TikTok analytics and proficiency in medieval Latin. Burnout? Yeah. You’re applying to jobs in your car, between gigs, at the dentist, during dinner, and wondering if the only thing more unstable than your career is your internet connection.

Let’s Talk Interviews

If you’re lucky enough to get one, the stages are:

1. Initial screening
2. Second screening with someone new?
3. “Culture fit” coffee chat
4. Three-panel interview
5. Paid assignment
6. Presentation to stakeholders
7. Interview with the CEO’s dog
8. Ghosting

You may never get an offer, but you’ll have enough content for a memoir called “Per My Last Interview: A Journey Through Corporate Purgatory.”

So, What’s the Takeaway?

There is no takeaway. There’s no secret formula. No guaranteed method. No perfect resume font. No productivity hack. No seven-figure “pivot” plan. There’s just you, the bots, the platforms, the games, and the creeping suspicion that Drew Carey was right all along.

Back to the Stage…

Picture this: The lights are back up. Colin is juggling expired job listings. Wayne is freestyle rapping a follow-up email. Ryan’s on the floor, screaming into the void. And you? You’re still here. Still trying. Still showing up.

And really, that’s the only advice worth giving anymore: Good luck. You’re going to need it.